Toyota took pole position for the 6 Hours of Shanghai this afternoon as Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi combined to head all challengers and secure the No.7 Toyota TS050 HYBRID’s fourth top spot of the season. The average time of 1m42.832s was enough to seal the pole after Kobayashi had set an ultimate best of 1m42.526s.
Joining the No.7 Toyota on the front row for tomorrow’s rolling start will be the No.1 Porsche 919 Hybrid which was driven by Nick Tandy and André Lotterer in qualifying. Tandy set the early pace but the session was slightly compromised when Lotterer had one of his laps deleted after violating track limits at Turn 16.
The No.8 Toyota, which is aiming to stop the No.2 Porsche crew taking the Drivers’ title this weekend, starts third as Sébastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson shared the cockpit in the qualifying session.
Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber continued their all-Kiwi qualifying attack but ultimately came unstuck as Bamber suffered a mid-session spin. This meant that the leaders of the points classification will start fourth.
In one of the most important qualifying sessions of the season, due to the crucial extra one point available towards the GT FIA World Endurance Championship, Danish duo Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim took their first pole position of the season at Shanghai in their No.95 Aston Martin.
The pair averaged 1m59.697s average, which put them just over two tenths up on the Porsche pair of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre’s 1m59.916s.
Points standing leaders and winners of the last two FIA World Endurance Championship events, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi of AF Corse Ferrari, placed third as they look to extend their advantage in the penultimate race of the season tomorrow.
The No.67 Ford GT of Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx made it four manufacturers in the top four positions.
In LMP2 the Vaillante Rebellion duo of Bruno Senna and Julien Canal took a first category pole of the season for the No.31 car.
Senna set the quickest overall time, but it was Canal’s lap which confirmed the pole as the Frenchman, who is aiming to become a double LMP2 champion this season, drove a faultless final sector to even eclipse Senna’s earlier benchmark.
A fine second place was taken by the G-Drive Racing car, driven by WEC newcomer Nico Muller and recently crowned ELMS champion Léo Roussel.
The LMGTE Am pole fell to the No.98 Aston Martin Racing pairing of Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana. It was the sixth time the pair has taken pole this season and Lamy celebrated a fourth consecutive top spot in as many years at the Chinese track.
The extra point gained by the No.98 ensured that they are now level with the Dempsey Proton Racing drivers going in to tomorrow’s race.
