Fuji WEC: Hartley, Bamber take pole for Porsche
Porsche drivers Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley took pole position for this weekend's Fuji round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Bamber trailed teammate Nick Tandy after the first runs during the wet qualifying session by less than two tenths of a second.
Hartley went quicker than Andre Lotterer to jump ahead of the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid, before the German improved his time to claim back the top spot.
The New Zealander, who leads the WEC standings with Bamber and Timo Bernhard, responded to propel the #2 car back to the top of the timesheets.
Bamber and Hartley ended up with two-lap average for 1m35.160s, which put them just 0.071s up on Tandy and Lotterer's 1m35.231s.
Toyota was less than two tenths of a second behind with the #8 TS050 Hybrid qualified by Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi.
Nakajima had trailed Tandy's session-best of 1m35.068s by almost exactly two tenths, before Buemi whittled his time down to a 1m34.441s to run the Porsches close.
Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi were over a second back on their teammates in fourth position in the #7 Toyota.
Hartley said: "That was seriously close between the two Porsches, and Buemi at the end there was on fast lap.
"The Toyota look strong on the long runs, so we are expecting a close race tomorrow."
Rebellion quickest in LMP2, Porsche in GTE
Nelson Piquet Jr and David Heinemeier Hansson led an LMP2 one-two for the Rebellion team.
Piquet Jr headed teammate Bruno Senna by three tenths after the first runs, and then Heinemeier Hansson had more than a second in hand over Julien Canal in the sister Oreca-Gibson 07.
That gave the #13 car a two-lap average of 1m44.196s, seven tenths clear of their team-mates.
Ho-Pin Tung and Thomas Laurent were less than a tenth back in third aboard the lead Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca.
Porsche took the pole in GTE Pro, Richard Lietz and Frederic Makowiecki taking the top spot with a 1m47.533s average.
That put them four tenths up on the Ganassi Ford GT driven by Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell.
The Clearwater Ferrari team took its first GTE Am pole with Matt Griffin and Weng Sun Mok.
Prototype qualifying:
Pos. | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | Timo Bernhard Brendon Hartley Earl Bamber |
Porsche 919 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'35.160 | |
2 | 1 | Andre Lotterer Neel Jani Nick Tandy |
Porsche 919 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'35.231 | 0.071 |
3 | 8 | Anthony Davidson Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'35.355 | 0.195 |
4 | 7 | Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway Jose Maria Lopez |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'36.630 | 1.470 |
5 | 13 | Nelson Piquet Jr. David Heinemeier Hansson Mathias Beche |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'44.196 | 9.036 |
6 | 31 | Bruno Senna Julien Canal Nicolas Prost |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'44.925 | 9.765 |
7 | 38 | Oliver Jarvis Ho-Pin Tung Thomas Laurent |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'45.078 | 9.918 |
8 | 36 | Nicolas Lapierre Andre Negrao Gustavo Menezes |
Alpine A470 | LMP2 | 1'45.927 | 10.767 |
9 | 37 | David Cheng Tristan Gommendy Alex Brundle |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'46.109 | 10.949 |
10 | 26 | Roman Rusinov Pierre Thiriet James Rossiter |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'46.205 | 11.045 |
11 | 25 | Vitaly Petrov Simon Trummer Roberto Gonzalez |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'47.354 | 12.194 |
12 | 24 | Jean-Eric Vergne Ben Hanley Matt Rao |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'47.411 | 12.251 |
13 | 28 | François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard Matthieu Vaxiviere |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'47.989 | 12.829 |
GTE qualifying:
Pos. | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 91 | Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 1'47.577 | |
2 | 67 | Harry Tincknell Andy Priaulx |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 1'48.018 | 0.441 |
3 | 66 | Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 1'48.139 | 0.562 |
4 | 71 | Sam Bird Davide Rigon |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 1'48.195 | 0.618 |
5 | 92 | Michael Christensen Kevin Estre |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 1'48.265 | 0.688 |
6 | 95 | Marco Sorensen Nicki Thiim |
Aston Martin Vantage | LMGTE PRO | 1'48.578 | 1.001 |
7 | 51 | James Calado Alessandro Pier Guidi |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 1'48.702 | 1.125 |
8 | 97 | Darren Turner Jonathan Adam |
Aston Martin Vantage | LMGTE PRO | 1'49.125 | 1.548 |
9 | 61 | Matt Griffin Mok Weng Sun Keita Sawa |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 1'49.408 | 1.831 |
10 | 77 | Christian Ried Matteo Cairoli Marvin Dienst |
Porsche 911 RSR (991) | LMGTE AM | 1'49.734 | 2.157 |
11 | 98 | Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda |
Aston Martin Vantage V8 | LMGTE AM | 1'49.784 | 2.207 |
12 | 86 | Mike Hedlund Ben Barker Nick Foster Jr. |
Porsche 911 RSR (991) | LMGTE AM | 1'49.866 | 2.289 |
13 | 54 | Francesco Castellacci Miguel Molina Thomas Flohr |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 1'50.797 | 3.220 |
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