Fernando Alonso surged to the head of the field during second💞 practice for this weekend’s FIA World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Fuji, finishing over a second clear of Toyota teammate Jose Maria Lopez.

McLaren Formula 1 racer Alonso returned to the wheel of his Le Mans-winning #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid for t🎃he first time in six weeks on Friday at Fuji as co-driver Sebastien Buemi topped the timesheet in the opening practice session.

Alonso managed to bea🌄t Buemi’s lap by almost two seconds in FP2, turning in a best time of 1m23.973s as he went one second clear of the field.

Lopez was Alo♒nso’s closest challenger, lapping 1.095 seconds slower to finish the session second in the #7 Toyota as the Japane💝se marque swept to another one-two finish.

Rebellion Racing finished as the leading privateer team in LMP༒1 as Thomas Laurent took P3, 1.7 seconds back from Alonso’s benchmark. Jenson Button was fourth-quickest in LMP1 for SMP Racing.

Andre Negrao managed to lead the way in LMP2 for🐼 Signatech Alpine Matmut after beating Jackie Chan DC Racing’s Ho-Pin Tung by four-tenths of a second. Weiron Tan was third in class in the sister DC Racing entry.

Aston Martin Racing rose to the head of the fie𒊎ld in GTE-Pro thanks to Nicki Thiim in the #95 Aston Martin Vantage GTE. His lap of 1m37.6🐬59s saw him finish one-tenth of a second clear of Harry Tincknell in the #67 Ford GT.

GTE-Am was led by Matteo Cairoli in the #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR, beating the team’s sister #77 Porsche by two-tenths of a second.
 
As in FP1, a red flag was required in second practice at Fuji for track repairs, wit💜h two lengthy stoppag⛦es wiping around half an hour off the session running time.

Running will resume o😼n Saturday at Fuji with Free Practice 3 taking place at 9:30am local time (1:30am BST).