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Porsche still on top after shortened Le Mans qualifying session

Porsche continues to lock out the top three positions in qualifying for the Le Mans 24 Hours after the second of three sessions

Neel Jani's time of 3m17.767s in the #18 Porsche, set last night, remains top of the timesheets after the first two of tonight's four hours of qualifying, which was cut short by a red flag.

This was caused by damage to the barrier sustained when Jan Magnussen's GTE Pro-class Chevrolet Corvette C7.R crashed in the Porsche Curves.

There were some improvements in the top five, however, with Nick Tandy shaving 0.435s off the best time of the #19 Porsche.

But this was not enough to move the car up from third place, leaving it still 1.1s slower than the #17 Porsche qualified second yesterday by Timo Bernhard.

The trio of Audis continues to be led by the #8 car thanks to Loic Duval's time of yesterday, although Andre Lotterer jumped from sixth to fifth place in the #7 entry ahead of the third Audi.

Toyota continued to hold seventh and eighth places, with Sebastien Buemi having an eventful session in the #1 car as his early lap times were deleted because of exceeding track limits, and then spinning while under a red flag.

That red flag was caused by several cars stopping on circuit, including the #13 Rebellion of Dominik Kraihamer, the #47 KCMG ORECA that holds LMP2-class pole position and the #55 GTE Am Ferrari of Duncan Cameron, which ended up in the gravel.

Further back, Pierre Kaffer hoisted the ByKolles-run CLM to 11th place with a lap of 3m36.825s, not long before the second and final red flag of the session.

This put it ahead of all three Nissan's, with the #23 car still in 13th despite Olivier Pla's attempts to improve its time tonight.

The other two Nissans are 18th and 22nd, although the #21 car that had a difficult first day of qualifying has climbed ahead of the #22 car thanks to inaugural GT Academy winner Lucas Ordonez setting a 3m39.992s.

In LMP2, nobody threatened the KCMG ORECA and although several cars made minor improvements, Greaves Motorsport, Jota Sport and the #26 G-Drive Racing (OAK) entries still occupy the top four places.

The biggest mover was Murphy Prototypes, which climbed from 14th to ninth through Nathanael Berthon's 3m41.827s, after the car missed the majority of Thursday's qualifying session.

In GTE, Aston Martin Racing continues to lead the way in both Pro (#99 qualified first by Richie Stanaway yesterday) and Am (#98 of Pedro Lamy), with no significant changes up front since yesterday's session

However, the #51 AF Corse Ferrari, which lost its second place in GTE Pro overnight, did works its way back up to eighth in class in the hands of Toni Vilander.

The final session starts at 2130 local time, 30 minutes earlier than planned, to allow two-and-a-half hours of running to compensate for the lost track time.

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Pos Class Driver Team Car Gap
1 LMP1 N.Hulkenberg, E.Bamber, N.Tandy Porsche Team Porsche 3m18.862s
2 LMP1 M.Fassler, A.Lotterer, B.Treluyer Audi Sport Team Joest Audi 1.699s
3 LMP1 R.Dumas, N.Jani, M.Lieb Porsche Team Porsche 2.112s
4 LMP1 T.Bernhard, M.Webber, B.Hartley Porsche Team Porsche 2.118s
5 LMP1 L.di Grassi, L.Duval, O.Jarvis Audi Sport Team Joest Audi 2.819s
6 LMP1 F.Albuquerque, M.Bonanomi, R.Rast Audi Sport Team Joest Audi 3.632s
7 LMP1 A.Davidson, S.Buemi, K.Nakajima Toyota Racing Toyota 6.371s
8 LMP1 A.Wurz, S.Sarrazin, M.Conway Toyota Racing Toyota 7.518s
9 LMP1 N.Prost, M.Beche, N.Heidfeld Rebellion Racing Rebellion/AER 9.883s
10 LMP1 S.Trummer, P.Kaffer, T.Monteiro Team ByKolles CLM/AER 17.963s
11 LMP1 A.Imperatori, D.Kraihamer, D.Abt Rebellion Racing Rebellion/AER 19.182s
12 LMP1 O.Pla, J.Mardenborough, M.Chilton Nissan Motorsports Nissan 20.092s
13 LMP1 T.Matsuda, M.Shulzhitskiy, L.Ordonez Nissan Motorsports Nissan 21.130s
14 LMP2 P.Thiriet, T.Gommendy, L.Badey Thiriet by TDS Racing ORECA/Nissan 21.579s
15 LMP2 M.Howson, R.Bradley, N.Lapierre KCMG ORECA/Nissan 21.762s
16 LMP2 N.Panciatici, P-L.Chatin, V.Capillaire Signatech Alpine Alpine/Nissan 22.615s
17 LMP2 K.Chandhok, M.Patterson, N.Berthon Murphy Prototypes ORECA/Nissan 22.965s
18 LMP1 H.Tincknell, M.Krumm, A.Buncombe Nissan Motorsports Nissan 23.368s
19 LMP2 S.Sharp, R.Dalziel, D.H.Hansson Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier/HPD 24.000s
20 LMP2 L.Roussel, D.Cheng, H-Pin Tung Pegasus Racing Morgan/Nissan 24.962s
21 LMP2 C.Cumming, L.Vanthoor, K.Estre Oak Racing Ligier/HPD 24.991s
22 LMP2 G.Hirsch, G.Paletou, J.Lancaster Greaves Motorsport Gibson/Nissan 25.261s
23 LMP2 E.Brown, J.van Overbeek, J.Fogarty Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier/HPD 25.769s
24 LMP2 N.Leventis, D.Watts, J.Kane Strakka Racing Dome/Nissan 25.842s
25 LMP2 T.Krohn, N.Jonsson, J.Barbosa Krohn Racing Ligier/Judd 25.992s
26 LMP2 S.Dolan, M.Evans, O.Turvey JOTA Gibson/Nissan 26.908s
27 LMP2 G.Yacaman, P.Derani, R.Gonzalez G-Drive Racing Ligier/Nissan 27.642s
28 LMP2 R.Rusinov, J.Canal, S.Bird G-Drive Racing Ligier/Nissan 28.851s
29 LMP2 M.Aleshin, K.Ladygin, A.Ladygin SMP Racing BR Engineering/Nissan 33.521s
30 LMP2 M.Mediani, D.Markozov, N.Minassian SMP Racing BR Engineering/Nissan 35.203s
31 GTE Pro D.Turner, S.Mucke, R.Bell Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 38.585s
32 GTE Pro G.Bruni, T.Vilander, G.Fisichella AF Corse Ferrari 38.641s
33 GTE Pro R.Lietz, M.Christensen, J.Bergmeister Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 38.981s
34 GTE Pro D.Rigon, J.Calado, O.Beretta AF Corse Ferrari 39.536s
35 GTE Pro P.Pilet, F.Makowiecki, W.Henzler Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 39.859s
36 GTE Am V.Shaytar, A.Bertolini, A.Basov SMP Racing Ferrari 39.975s
37 GTE Pro M.Sorensen, C.Nygaard, N.Thiim Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 40.121s
38 LMP2 J.Nicolet, J-M.Merlin, E.Maris Oak Racing Ligier/HPD 40.382s
39 GTE Pro F.Rees, A.MacDowall, R.Stanaway Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 40.401s
40 GTE Pro J.Magnussen, A.Garcia, R.Briscoe Corvette Racing Chevrolet 40.892s
41 GTE Pro O.Gavin, T.Milner, J.Taylor Corvette Racing Chevrolet 41.163s
42 GTE Am P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 41.248s
43 GTE Am P.Mann, R.Giammaria, M.Cressoni AF Corse Ferrari 41.449s
44 GTE Am J.Bleekemolen, B.Keating, M.Miller Riley Motorsports-Ti Auto SRT/Dodge 42.639s
45 GTE Am C.Ried, K.Al Qubaisi, K.Bachler Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche 43.499s
46 GTE Am H.C.Chen, G.Vannelet, M.Parisy Team AAI Porsche 43.927s
47 GTE Am G.Roda, P.Ruberti, K.Poulsen Larbre Competition Chevrolet 44.009s
48 GTE Am F.Perrodo, E.Collard, R.Aguas AF Corse Ferrari 44.779s
49 GTE Am D.Cameron, M.Griffin, A.Mortimer AF Corse Ferrari 44.903s
50 GTE Am A.Al Faisal, K.Giermaziak, M.Avenatti JMW Motorsport Ferrari 45.019s
51 GTE Am R.Goethe, S.Hall, F.Castellacci Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 45.331s
52 GTE Am J.San Chen, A.Kapadia, X.Maassen Team AAI Porsche 46.275s
53 GTE Am B.Sweedler, T.Bell, J.Segal Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 46.470s
54 GTE Am P.Dempsey, P.Long, M.Seefried Dempsey Racing - Proton Porsche 49.295s

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