Shanghai WEC: Porsche and Toyota tie for pole

The #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid qualified by Neel Jani and Romain Dumas and the #8 Toyota shared by Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi ended up with an identical four-lap average of 1m48.300s.

The Porsche will start from pole position, however, because it posted its average before the Toyota.

Jani, who set the fastest time of the session with a 1m47.036s, topped the timesheets after the first runs from Porsche team-mate Mark Webber.

Buemi jumped to second ahead of the #20 Porsche, which Brendon Hartley took over from Webber, after two slow laps between his first and second quick laps.

His average at that point was just one hundredth of a second down on the pole-winning Porsche despite a lock-up at the Turn 14 hairpin.

The Swiss then tried again after another slow lap and posted his fastest lap to lower his average and tie with the Porsche.

Jani said: "I thought that kind of thing would be impossible, but we are happy to hang onto the pole after they came from behind to beat the #20 car at Fuji last time out.

"I was watching the Toyota thinking, if only I'd been a bit quicker at this corner or that corner, and then we'd be safe."

Jani believed he could have gone quicker had he had a proper run on new tyres prior to qualifying.

Davidson and Buemi both admitted to mistakes during their qualifying runs.

"The first lap when the tyres were at their best didn't happen for me," explained Davidson.

"That lap was so scruffy, so I felt that I threw away the opportunity to extract the time on the brand new tyres."

Buemi reckoned that he would have done enough to claim the pole without the Turn 14 lock-up.

Webber and Hartley ended up with an average 0.024s behind the top two.

Alex Wurz and Kazuki Nakajima were a further two tenths back in fourth, while the two Audi R18 e-tron quattros again ended up fifth and sixth in the hands of Loic Duval and Lucas di Grassi and Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer.

LIGIER AND ASTON TOP CLASSES

The G-Drive Racing Ligier-Nissan JSP2 claimed LMP2 honours with Roman Rusinov and Olivier Pla driving.

Rusinov was just ahead of Alexandre Imperatori in the KCMG ORECA-Nissan 03R after the first runs, before Pla extend the advantage to nearly a full second when he went up against Richard Bradley.

Aston Martin Racing drivers Stefan Mucke and Darren Turner claimed their first pole of the year in GTE Pro.

Turner leapfrogged over the factory Porsche 911 RSR shared by Patrick Pilet and Frederic Makowiecki after setting his best time on his third flying lap aboard his Aston Martin Vantage GTE.

GTE Am honours went to the AMR Vantage driven by Pedro Lamy and Christoffer Nygaard.