Shanghai WEC: Mark Webber/Brendon Hartley put Porsche on pole
Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley claimed pole position for Porsche ahead of Sunday's penultimate round of the World Endurance Championship at Shanghai
Hartley and Webber set the fastest two laps of qualifying to end up with a 1m42.719s average aboard their Porsche 919 Hybrid.
That put them more than seven tenths up on the sister Porsche qualified by Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas in second position.
The point for pole position means that Webber, Hartley and Timo Bernhard increase their championship lead to two points.
Hartley, who set the fastest lap of the session with a 1m42.621s, said: "We were not that confident in free practice one and we put a good little programme together to improve the car.
"The car was on fire - I did a quali sim this morning and found it hard to match that."
The Porsches both ran on two new sets of tyres, whereas Audi, which ended up in third and fourth positions, used one set of Michelins.
Loic Duval and Lucas di Grassi took third place in their R18 E-tron quattro with a 1m44.200s average, which put them more than four tenths up on the sister car qualified by Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler.
Toyota again filled out positions five and six with its pair of TS040 HYBRIDs, Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson ending up two tenths clear of Alex Wurz and Mike Conway.
G-DRIVE BEATS KCMG IN LMP2 BATTLE
The championship-leading G-Drive Racing squad took LMP2 pole with an average of 1m52.763s from Julien Canal and Sam Bird in its lead Ligier-Nissan JSP2.
That put them nearly six tenths up on the KCMG ORECA-Nissan 05 qualified by Matt Howson and Nick Tandy.
AF Corse drivers Toni Vilander and Gianmaria Bruni took the point for pole position in GTE Pro aboard their Ferrari 458 Italia.
Their average of 2m02.243s shaded that of team-mates James Calado and Davide Rigon by just over two tenths.
Alex MacDowall and Fernando Rees ended up third in the fastest of the Aston Martin Vantage GTEs.
The two Manthey Porsche 911 RSRs took fourth and fifth positions, but opted for a different tyre strategy to the top three.
The used one set of medium compound Michelins rather than two sets of softs.
Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana claimed pole in GTE Am for Aston Martin.
QUALIFYING TIMES:
Pos | Class | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | LMP1 | T.Bernhard, M.Webber, B.Hartley | Porsche Team | Porsche | 1m42.719s | - |
2 | LMP1 | R.Dumas, N.Jani, M.Lieb | Porsche Team | Porsche | 1m43.488s | 0.769s |
3 | LMP1 | L.di Grassi, L.Duval, O.Jarvis | Audi Sport Team Joest | Audi | 1m44.200s | 1.481s |
4 | LMP1 | M.Fassler, A.Lotterer, B.Treluyer | Audi Sport Team Joest | Audi | 1m44.645s | 1.926s |
5 | LMP1 | A.Davidson, S.Buemi, K.Nakajima | Toyota Racing | Toyota | 1m45.776s | 3.057s |
6 | LMP1 | A.Wurz, S.Sarrazin, M.Conway | Toyota Racing | Toyota | 1m45.962s | 3.243s |
7 | LMP1 | A.Imperatori, D.Kraihamer, M.Tuscher | Rebellion Racing | Rebellion/AER | 1m49.418s | 6.699s |
8 | LMP1 | N.Prost, M.Beche | Rebellion Racing | Rebellion/AER | 1m50.942s | 8.223s |
9 | LMP1 | S.Trummer, P.Kaffer | Team ByKolles | CLM/AER | 1m52.069s | 9.350s |
10 | LMP2 | R.Rusinov, J.Canal, S.Bird | G-Drive Racing | Ligier/Nissan | 1m52.763s | 10.044s |
11 | LMP2 | M.Howson, R.Bradley, N.Tandy | KCMG | ORECA/Nissan | 1m53.345s | 10.626s |
12 | LMP2 | G.Yacaman, P.Derani, R.Gonzalez | G-Drive Racing | Ligier/Nissan | 1m53.390s | 10.671s |
13 | LMP2 | P.Ragues, O.Webb, C.Cumming | Team SARD Morand | Morgan/SARD | 1m53.600s | 10.881s |
14 | LMP2 | N.Panciatici, P-L.Chatin, T.Dillmann | Signatech Alpine | Alpine/Nissan | 1m53.747s | 11.028s |
15 | LMP2 | S.Sharp, R.Dalziel, D.H.Hansson | Extreme Speed Motorsports | Ligier/HPD | 1m54.775s | 12.056s |
16 | LMP2 | N.Leventis, D.Watts, J.Kane | Strakka Racing | Gibson/Nissan | 1m55.205s | 12.486s |
17 | LMP2 | D.Cheng, H-Pin Tung, A.Brundle | Pegasus Racing | Morgan/Nissan | 1m56.624s | 13.905s |
18 | LMP2 | E.Brown, J.van Overbeek, J.Fogarty | Extreme Speed Motorsports | Ligier/HPD | 1m57.432s | 14.713s |
19 | GTE Pro | G.Bruni, T.Vilander | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m02.243s | 19.524s |
20 | GTE Pro | D.Rigon, J.Calado | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m02.508s | 19.789s |
21 | GTE Pro | A.MacDowall, F.Rees, R.Stanaway | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 2m02.540s | 19.821s |
22 | GTE Pro | P.Pilet, F.Makowiecki | Porsche Team Manthey | Porsche | 2m03.048s | 20.329s |
23 | GTE Pro | R.Lietz, M.Christensen | Porsche Team Manthey | Porsche | 2m03.352s | 20.633s |
24 | GTE Pro | D.Turner, J.Adam | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 2m03.393s | 20.674s |
25 | GTE Am | P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 2m04.728s | 22.009s |
26 | GTE Am | F.Castellacci, L.Griffin, S.Hall | Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin | 2m04.858s | 22.139s |
27 | GTE Am | G.Roda, P.Ruberti, N.Sylvest | Larbre Competition | Chevrolet | 2m04.874s | 22.155s |
28 | GTE Am | F.Perrodo, E.Collard, R.Aguas | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m05.455s | 22.736s |
29 | GTE Am | V.Shaytar, A.Bertolini, A.Basov | SMP Racing | Ferrari | 2m05.556s | 22.837s |
30 | GTE Am | P.Dempsey, P.Long, M.Seefried | Dempsey Racing - Proton | Porsche | 2m06.196s | 23.477s |
31 | GTE Am | C.Ried, K.Al Qubaisi, K.Bachler | Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing | Porsche | 2m11.851s | 29.132s |
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