Shanghai WEC: Toyota captures pole for WEC finale

Alex Wurz pulled out a lap of 1m48.273s around the Shanghai International Circuit to leapfrog early pacesetter Allan McNish in the best of the Audi R18 e-tron quattros.

The second Audi was a further two tenths behind in the hands of Andre Lotterer.

Wurz, who shares the solo Toyota TS030 HYBRID with Nicolas Lapierre, said: "I must say that the car was better today than the driver: I screwed up the last sector on my pole lap and lost a couple of tenths."

The top three LMP1 privateers were separated by just three hundredths of a second in the battle for fourth place on the grid behind the factory cars. Karun Chandhok just came out on top in the JRM Racing HPD ARX-03a from Neel Jani's Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota B12/60.

James Rossiter took the first pole position for the Lotus LMP2 squad. The Briton put his Lola-Judd/BMW B12/80 two tenths clear of the ADR-Delta ORECA-Nissan 03 driven by John Martin.

Pole in GTE Pro went to factory Aston Martin Vantage GTE driven by Darren Turner.

The Briton ended up seven tenths clear of the Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 911 GT3-RSR driven by Richard Lietz.

Pos  Cl     Drivers                         Team/Car                Time
 1.  P1     Wurz/Lapierre                   Toyota                  1m48.273s
 2.  P1     Kristensen/McNish               Audi                    1m48.373s
 3.  P1     Fassler/Lotterer/Treluyer       Audi                    1m48.597s
 4.  P1     Brabham/Chandhok/Dumbreck       JRM HPD                 1m51.003s
 5.  P1     Prost/Jani                      Rebellion Lola-Toyota   1m51.019s
 6.  P1     Leventis/Watts/Kane             Strakka HPD             1m51.037s
 7.  P1     Belicchi/Primat/Chen            Rebellion Lola-Toyota   1m51.394s
 8.  P1     Baguette/Kraihamer/Sato         OAK Pescarolo-Honda     1m52.172s
 9.  P2     Charouz/Rossiter/Weeda          Lotus Lola-Lotus        1m54.132s
10.  P2     Martin/Graves/Beche             ADR-Delta ORECA-Nissan  1m54.301s
11.  P2     Potolicchio/Dalziel/Sarrazin    Starworks HPD           1m54.350s
12.  P2     Nicolet/Lahaye/Pla              OAK Morgan-Nissan       1m54.475s
13.  P2     Perez Companc/Minassian/Kaffer  Pecom ORECA-Nissan      1m55.151s
14.  P2     Holzer/Schultis                 Lotus Lola-Lotus        1m55.195s
15.  P2     Mailleux/Lombard/Tresson        Signatech ORECA-Nissan  1m55.687s
16.  P2     Zugel/Gonzalez/Julian           Greaves Zytek-Nissan    1m56.531s
17.  P2     Panciatici/Ragues/Rusinov       Signatech ORECA-Nissan  1m56.682s
18.  P2     Giroix/Ihara/Deletraz           Gulf Lola-Nissan        1m57.370s
19.  GTE P  Mucke/Turner                    Aston Martin            2m03.721s
20.  GTE P  Lieb/Lietz                      Felbermayr Porsche      2m04.471s
21.  GTE P  Fisichella/Bruni                AF Ferrari              2m05.387s
22.  GTE A  Ried/Roda/Ruberti               Felbermayr Porsche      2m05.584s
23.  GTE A  Kauffman/Aguas/Waltrip          AF Ferrari              2m05.836s
24.  GTE P  Bertolini/Beretta               AF Ferrari              2m06.367s
25.  GTE A  Bornhauser/Canal/Lamy           Larbre Corvette         2m06.910s
26.  GTE A  Camathias/Palttala/Bell         JWA Porsche             2m08.848s
27.  GTE A  Belloc/Bourret/Gibon            Larbre Corvette         2m09.155s
28.  GTE A  Krohn/Jonsson/Rugolo            Krohn Ferrari           2m09.641s