Fuji WEC: Bernhard and Webber claim pole position for Porsche

Bernhard was the fastest of the first batch of drivers with a 1m22.888s before Webber went slightly faster with a 1m22.639s to lower their average to 1m22.763s.

That put them three tenths up on the second-placed Porsche 919 Hybrid qualified by Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb.

Dumas was second fastest to Bernhard with a 1m23.016s, but Lieb's fastest time of 1m23.275s on his first run dropped him to third position behind the best of the Audis, qualified by Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer.

The German, unlike the sister car and the Audi, had been sent out on old tyres, but he just had time to come in for a new set of Michelins and post a 1m23.127s to pip the Audi R18 e-tron quattro drivers by one hundredth.

Bernhard said: "It's another pole for Porsche, but Audi pushed us much harder this time.

"The most important thing is that we got the point for pole to get closer to the #7 Audi [which leads the championship in the hands of Lotterer, Treluyer and March Fassler]."

Audi, which is running a new aerodynamic configuration at Fuji, took third and fourth positions, the second R18 of Lucas di Grassi and Loic Duval ending up a tenth-and-a-half behind its sister car with an average of 1m23.245s.

Toyota again took fifth and sixth positions, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi ending up with a 1m25.072s average.

G-DRIVE DOMINATES LMP2

Julien Canal and Sam Bird claimed pole in the LMP2 class aboard their G-Drive Ligier-Nissan JSP2.

Canal was fastest of the silver-rated drivers, although Bird was slightly slower than team-mate Gustavo Yacaman.

Their average of 1m31.529s was two tenths up on the second G-Drive Ligier that Ricardo Gonzalez qualified along with Yacaman.

AF Corse Ferrari drivers Davide Rigon and James Calado took their first WEC pole in the GTE Pro class.

Rigon was just pipped by team-mate Toni Vilander before Calado outperformed team leader Gianmaria Bruni.

Bruni had a second run on new tyres aboard his Ferrari 458 Italia, but was unable to improve his time.

That meant that Rigon and Calado's average of 1m38.403s gave them the top spot by just over a tenth.

GTE Am honours were taken by Gianluca Roda and Paolo Ruberti in the Larbre Chevrolet Corvette C7.R.

QUALIFYING RESULTS: