Brendon Hartley set the fastest-ever LMP1 lap at Shanghai on Saturday as he turned in a 1m42.799s lap with the Porsche 919 Hybrid he shares with Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard.
The Kiwi outpaced the sister Porsche driven by Marc Lieb as teams simulated qualifying runs before concentrating on race pace in the second half of the 90-minute session.
Hartley, Webber and Bernhard hold a one-point advantage over Audi’s Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler as they head into qualifying.
Audi was second with the #7 entry driven by Treluyer, 0.7s up on Loic Duval in the #8 R18 e-tron quattro.
The #7 Audi started the session on old tyres and completed its qualifying simulation, much later than its rivals. The gap between Audi and Porsche for qualifying appears to be around the two second mark.
Toyota Racing continued to annex the fifth and sixth positions with Sebastien Buemi heading Alex Wurz in the pair of Toyota TS 040 HYBRID LMP1 cars
The session saw one Full Course Yellow, which was deployed after twenty minutes when Julien Canal crashed his G-Drive Ligier on the quick right-hander coming onto the back straight. The Frenchman clattered the wall on the inside, damaging the front left corner and rear deck of the car.
While there was frustration for that side of the G-Drive garage, there was satisfaction in the other as Pipo Derani claimed the fastest lap in the #28 car. The Brazilian set a best lap of 1m52.453s to head the Strakka Gibson of Danny Watts by a huge margin of 1.6s.
Ferrari led both of the GT classes with Gianmaria Bruni enjoying a clear lead in the Pro class with the AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia he shares with Toni Vilander. The rapid Italian had a 0.421s gap over the #92 Porsche Team Manthey 911 RSR driven by Frederic Makowiecki.
Makowiecki's teammate Patrick Pilet took over for the final 25 minutes of the session and survived a collision with Pierre Kaffer’s CLM P1/01 LMP1 car.
The LMGTE Am class had the SMP Racing Ferrari hold an advantage. Surprisingly, it was the team's Bronze-categorised driver Aleksey Basov who posted the fastest lap of 2m04.688s. The Russian’s time was a couple of tenths up on Pat Long’s in the Dempsey-Proton Porsche.
Practice results:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Porsche Team | Porsche 919 Hybrid | 1:42.799 | 1:42.799 |
2 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Porsche Team | Porsche 919 Hybrid | 1:43.919 | +1.120 |
3 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Audi Sport Team Joest | Audi R18 e-tron quattro '15 | 1:44.956 | +2.157 |
4 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Audi Sport Team Joest | Audi R18 e-tron quattro '15 | 1:45.645 | +2.846 |
5 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Toyota Racing | Toyota TS040 Hybrid | 1:46.365 | +3.566 |
6 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Toyota Racing | Toyota TS040 Hybrid | 1:46.530 | +3.731 |
7 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Rebellion Racing | Rebellion R-One | 1:49.321 | +6.522 |
8 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
G-Drive Racing | Ligier JS P2 | 1:52.453 | +9.654 |
9 | ![]() ![]() |
Team ByKolles | CLM P1/01 | 1:53.940 | +11.141 |
10 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Strakka Racing | Gibson 015S | 1:54.054 | +11.255 |
11 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
KCMG | ORECA 05 | 1:54.245 | +11.446 |
12 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Signatech Alpine | Alpine A450b | 1:54.398 | +11.599 |
13 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Extreme Speed Motorsports | Ligier JS P2 | 1:54.459 | +11.660 |
14 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
G-Drive Racing | Ligier JS P2 | 1:54.477 | +11.678 |
15 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Extreme Speed Motorsports | Ligier JS P2 | 1:55.809 | +13.010 |
16 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Team SARD Morand | Morgan LMP2 Evo '15 | 1:55.892 | +13.093 |
17 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Pegasus Racing | Morgan LMP2 | 1:57.231 | +14.432 |
18 | ![]() ![]() |
AF Corse | Ferrari F458 Italia | 2:02.747 | +19.948 |
19 | ![]() ![]() |
Porsche Team Manthey | Porsche 911 RSR | 2:03.168 | +20.369 |
20 | ![]() ![]() |
AF Corse | Ferrari F458 Italia | 2:03.177 | +20.378 |
21 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin Vantage V8 | 2:03.434 | +20.635 |
22 | ![]() ![]() |
Porsche Team Manthey | Porsche 911 RSR | 2:03.561 | +20.762 |
23 | ![]() ![]() |
Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin Vantage V8 | 2:04.482 | +21.683 |
24 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
SMP Racing | Ferrari F458 Italia | 2:04.688 | +21.889 |
25 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Dempsey Racing - Proton | Porsche 911 RSR | 2:04.899 | +22.100 |
26 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin Vantage V8 | 2:05.355 | +22.556 |
27 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Larbre Compétition | Chevrolet Corvette C7.R | 2:05.908 | +23.109 |
28 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
AF Corse | Ferrari F458 Italia | 2:06.087 | +23.288 |
29 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin Vantage V8 | 2:06.612 | +23.813 |
30 | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing | Porsche 911 RSR | 2:07.572 | +24.773 |
31 | ![]() ![]() |
Rebellion Racing | Rebellion R-One | 2:09.011 | +26.212 |