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Silverstone WEC: Conway and Lopez beat Alonso and Nakajima to pole

The #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi took its first World Endurance Championship pole position of the season at Silverstone

Conway outpaced Fernando Alonso in the #8 Toyota TS050 in the first runs by just two hundredths of a second before Lopez went eight tenths quicker than Alonso's qualifying partner Kazuki Nakajima.

That gave Conway and Lopez a 1m36.895s average, which compared with 1m37.306s for Alonso and Nakajima.

The Briton set his 1m36.769s, which stood as the fastest lap of the session, on his second run after aborting his first go at a time.

"I made a mistake starting the lap and another in Turn 4 [the Loop], so aborted the lap and went again," said Conway.

"I was conservative on track limits, but fortunately it was enough."

The 1m37.362s Nakajima lost to a track limits violation wouldn't have altered the order at the top of the timesheets.

The #7 had topped qualifying at Spa in May but was later excluded from the session, making this its first 2018 pole.

The Toyotas ended up more than two seconds clear of the best of the non-hybrid privateer LMP1s.

Vitaly and Jenson Button took third in the best of SMP Racing's AER-powered BR Engineering BR1s.

Their average of 1m38.932s was seven tenths up on that of the sister car driven by Stephane Sarrazin and Egor Orudzhev.

The two Rebellion-Gibson R-13s took fifth and sixth positions, Mathias Beche and Gustavo Menezes beating team-mates Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer by three tenths.

The Jota-run Jackie Chan DC Racing squad blocked out the top two positions in LMP2.

Jazeman Jaafar and Nabil Jeffri took the class pole in the #37 ORECA-Gibson 07 with a 1m44.896s average, which was just over a tenth ahead of team-mates Stephane Richelmi and Gabriel Aubry.

The Signatech Alpine ORECA took third, a further three tenths in arrears, with Nicolas Lapierre and Pierre Thiriet.

Stefan Mucke and Olivier Pla claimed the GTE Pro class pole for Ford by just over a tenth from a resurgent Aston Martin.

Mucke topped the times in the first runs with 1m55.727s in the #66 Ganassi Ford GT, before Pla followed it up with a 1m55.796s.

That gave them an average of 1m55.727s, which was just clear of the new Aston Martin Vantage GTE shared by Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin.

The two Aston drivers were separated by under a tenth on the way to a 1m55.805s average.

The second Aston driven by Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen was three tenths behind on 1m56.103s

The second of the Ganassi Fords ended up fourth on a 1m56.204s in the hands of Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell.

Porsche, Ferrari and BMW filled out the next three positions.

Porsche drivers Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre took fifth ahead of Ferrari pairing Sam Bird and Davide Rigon, with Augusto Farfus and Antonio Felix da Costa ending up seventh.

The GTE Am pole was taken the Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR shared by Jorg Bergmeister and Egidio Perfetti.

Watch the Silverstone WEC race live with Motorsport.TV On Demand

Qualifying result

Pos Class Driver Team Car Time Gap
1 LMP1 M.Conway, K.Kobayashi, J.M.Lopez Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 1m36.895s -
2 LMP1 S.Buemi, K.Nakajima, F.Alonso Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 1m37.306s 0.411s
3 LMP1 M.Aleshin, V.Petrov, J.Button SMP Racing BR Engineering/AER 1m38.932s 2.037s
4 LMP1 S.Sarrazin, E.Orudzhev SMP Racing BR Engineering/AER 1m39.070s 2.175s
5 LMP1 M.Beche, T.Laurent, G.Menezes Rebellion Racing Rebellion/Gibson 1m39.247s 2.352s
6 LMP1 N.Jani, A.Lotterer, B.Senna Rebellion Racing Rebellion/Gibson 1m39.613s 2.718s
7 LMP1 H.Hedman, B.Hanley, R.van der Zande DragonSpeed BR Engineering/Gibson 1m41.412s 4.517s
8 LMP1 O.Webb, R.Binder ByKOLLES Racing Team ENSO CLM/NISMO 1m41.839s 4.944s
9 LMP2 J.Jaafar, W.Tan, N.Jeffri Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA/Gibson 1m44.896s 8.001s
10 LMP2 H-Pin Tung, G.Aubry, S.Richelmi Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA/Gibson 1m45.083s 8.188s
11 LMP2 N.Lapierre, A.Negrao, P.Thiriet Signatech Alpine Matmut Alpine/Gibson 1m46.370s 9.475s
12 LMP2 F.Perrodo, M.Vaxiviere, L.Duval TDS Racing ORECA/Gibson 1m47.048s 10.153s
13 LMP2 F.van Eerd, G.van der Garde, N.de Vries Racing Team Nederland Dallara/Gibson 1m47.107s 10.212s
14 LMP2 R.Gonzalez, P.Maldonado, A.Davidson DragonSpeed ORECA/Gibson 1m47.270s 10.375s
15 LMP2 E.Creed, R.Ricci, Y.Mori Larbre Competition Alpine/Gibson 1m49.489s 12.594s
16 GTE Pro S.Mucke, O.Pla Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford 1m55.727s -
17 GTE Pro A.Lynn, M.Martin Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 1m55.805s -
18 GTE Pro M.Sorensen, N.Thiim Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 1m56.103s -
19 GTE Pro A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford 1m56.204s -
20 GTE Pro M.Christensen, K.Estre Porsche GT Team Porsche 1m56.446s -
21 GTE Pro D.Rigon, S.Bird AF Corse Ferrari 1m56.510s -
22 GTE Pro A.Farfus, A.F.da Costa BMW Team MTEK BMW 1m56.731s -
23 GTE Pro M.Tomczyk, N.Catsburg BMW Team MTEK BMW 1m56.992s -
24 GTE Pro A.P.Guidi, J.Calado AF Corse Ferrari 1m57.105s -
25 GTE Pro R.Lietz, G.Bruni Porsche GT Team Porsche 1m57.151s -
26 GTE Am J.Bergmeister, P.Lindsey, E.Perfetti Team Project 1 Porsche 1m59.001s -
27 GTE Am C.Ried, J.Andlauer, M.Campbell Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 1m59.203s -
28 GTE Am S.Yoluc, J.Adam, C.Eastwood TF Sport Aston Martin 1m59.275s -
29 GTE Am P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 1m59.338s -
30 GTE Am G.Roda, G.Roda, M.Cairoli Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 1m59.757s -
31 GTE Am T.Flohr, F.Castellacci, G.Fisichella Spirit of Race Ferrari 1m59.809s -
32 GTE Am M.Ishikawa, O.Beretta, E.Cheever MR Racing Ferrari 2m00.003s -
33 GTE Am Mok W.S., K.Sawa, M.Griffin Clearwater Racing Ferrari 2m00.118s -
34 GTE Am M.Wainwright, B.Barker, A.Davison Gulf Racing Porsche 2m00.221s -

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