TOYOTA GAZOO Racing took pole position for the 6 Hours of Shanghai in qualifying for the penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) in China.
The #7 TS050 HYBRID of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López had been fastest in all three practice sessions and kept up the pace in qualifying, earning their fourth pole of the season by 0.440secs.
Sébastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima will start tomorrow’s race from third position after a more challenging qualifying session in the #8 TS050 HYBRID.
After a difficult qualifying session the two Porsche 919 Hybrids will start from positions two and four on the grid for the six-hour race at the Shanghai International Circuit. The trio of Neel Jani (CH), André Lotterer (DE) and Nick Tandy (GB) qualified in second position. Championship leaders Earl Bamber (NZ), Timo Bernhard (DE) and Brendon Hartley (NZ) had to be satisfied with qualifying fourth. At the end of the 20-minute qualifying session, a puncture prevented Bamber from a further attempt to improve.
“I did okay,” commented Hartley. “I had a pretty scrappy first lap but my second lap was actually very good without the peak of the tyre. I was happy and we were in the mix for pole position. Unfortunately something happened on Earl’s out lap and he couldn’t do a proper lap in the end. I would have liked to be on pole position. It was definitely on the cards today, the car was very quick, but I think it is going to be a good fight tomorrow.”
Qualifying results:
1st #7 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing 1min 42.832secs
2nd #1 Porsche (Jani/Lotterer/Tandy) +0.440secs
3rd #8 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing +0.613secs
4th #2 Porsche (Bernhard/Bamber/Hartley) +0.665secs
5th #31 Rebellion (Canal/Prost/Senna) +6.385secs
6th #26 G-Drive (Rusinov/Roussel/Müller) +6.640secs
Comments