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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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