The #14 Porsche of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb will have the privilege of starting an FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) race from pole position for the second time this season, after the trio pipped the championship leading Toyota of Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson on account of a higher average speed in today’s crunch qualifying session at Shanghai.
After the first run, the two Porsches, who’ve been quick on a single lap all season long, were first and second in the timesheets with the #14 car on provisional pole. The Porsche formation was set to change in the second run after Sebastien Buemi set two consistent yet quick times - a 1:48.632 and a 1:48.637, to take his #8 Toyota’s four lap average on par with that of the lead Porsche(1:48.300).
With no difference between the average lap time of the two cars, the pole position went into Porsche's hands as they were the ones who were the first to complete their four lap average.
Third place on the grid went to the other Porsche of Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley with their four lap average just two hundredths of a second slower than its sister car.
In fourth place, and two tenths behind came the second Toyota of Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima and Stephane Sarrazin.
Audi, who relinquished their lead in the WEC manufacturers standings at the last race in Fuji, were again underperforming on the other side of the Pacific Ocean with their two cars well over a second slower than the pole time.
In the lightweight LMP1 sub-category, the #12 Rebellion racing had the edge over its sister car with the Lotus CLM P1/01 dead last.
WEC SHANGHAI LMP1-H RESULTS
1) #14 Porsche 1:48.300
2) #8 Toyota 1:48.300
3) #20 Porsche 1:48.324
4) #7 Toyota 1:48.324
5) Audi 1:49.454
6) Audi 1:50.072
LMP2 - EASY POLE FOR G-DRIVE
Fresh from their victory in Japan, the G-Drive entry of Julian Canal, Roman Rusinov and Olivier Pla topped the LMP2 class with an average time of 1:54.327. KCMG will start alongside on the front row in their class, with the two Oreca cars from SMP Racing lining up third and fourth.
Extreme Speed Motorsports, which returns to WEC after a successful maiden outing at CoTA, were fifth and sixth quickest in their class.
ASTON MARTIN DOMINANT IN GTE CLASSES
Aston Martin took pole pole position in both the WEC GT classes for the second race running with the #97 Vantage V8 qualifying on pole in Pro class and the #98 car ensuring that the British luxury car manufacturer started ahead of anyone in the Amateur GT class field.
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