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 |  Mark Webber  Brendon Hartley  Timo Bernhard |
Porsche Team | Porsche 919 Hybrid | 1:42.799 | 1:42.799 |
| 2 | Marc Lieb  Romain Dumas  Neel Jani |
Porsche Team | Porsche 919 Hybrid | 1:43.919 | +1.120 |
| 3 | Andre Lotterer Benoit Tréluyer Marcel Fassler |
Audi Sport Team Joest | Audi R18 e-tron quattro '15 | 1:44.956 | +2.157 |
| 4 | Loic Duval  Oliver Jarvis  Lucas di Grassi |
Audi Sport Team Joest | Audi R18 e-tron quattro '15 | 1:45.645 | +2.846 |
| 5 | Anthony Davidson  Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi |
Toyota Racing | Toyota TS040 Hybrid | 1:46.365 | +3.566 |
| 6 |  Alexander Wurz Mike Conway Stéphane Sarrazin |
Toyota Racing | Toyota TS040 Hybrid | 1:46.530 | +3.731 |
| 7 | Alexandre Imperatori Mathéo Tuscher Dominik Kraihamer |
Rebellion Racing | Rebellion R-One | 1:49.321 | +6.522 |
| 8 | Pipo Derani  Gustavo Yacaman  Ricardo Gonzalez |
G-Drive Racing | Ligier JS P2 | 1:52.453 | +9.654 |
| 9 | Pierre Kaffer Simon Trummer |
Team ByKolles | CLM P1/01 | 1:53.940 | +11.141 |
| 10 | Jonny Kane Nick Leventis Danny Watts |
Strakka Racing | Gibson 015S | 1:54.054 | +11.255 |
| 11 | Matthew Howson Nick Tandy Richard Bradley |
KCMG | ORECA 05 | 1:54.245 | +11.446 |
| 12 | Nelson Panciatici Paul-Loup Chatin Tom Dillmann |
Signatech Alpine | Alpine A450b | 1:54.398 | +11.599 |
| 13 |  David Heinemeier HanssonRyan Dalziel  Scott Sharp |
Extreme Speed Motorsports | Ligier JS P2 | 1:54.459 | +11.660 |
| 14 |  Roman Rusinov Sam Bird Julien Canal |
G-Drive Racing | Ligier JS P2 | 1:54.477 | +11.678 |
| 15 | Ed Brown Jon Fogarty Johannes van Overbeek |
Extreme Speed Motorsports | Ligier JS P2 | 1:55.809 | +13.010 |
| 16 | Oliver Webb  Chris Cumming Pierre Ragues |
Team SARD Morand | Morgan LMP2 Evo '15 | 1:55.892 | +13.093 |
| 17 | Alex Brundle  Ho-Pin Tung David Cheng |
Pegasus Racing | Morgan LMP2 | 1:57.231 | +14.432 |
| 18 |  Toni Vilander  Gianmaria Bruni |
AF Corse | Ferrari F458 Italia | 2:02.747 | +19.948 |
| 19 | Frédéric Makowiecki Patrick Pilet |
Porsche Team Manthey | Porsche 911 RSR | 2:03.168 | +20.369 |
| 20 | Davide Rigon James Calado |
AF Corse | Ferrari F458 Italia | 2:03.177 | +20.378 |
| 21 | Alex MacDowall Richie Stanaway Fernando Rees |
Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin Vantage V8 | 2:03.434 | +20.635 |
| 22 | Richard Lietz Michael Christensen |
Porsche Team Manthey | Porsche 911 RSR | 2:03.561 | +20.762 |
| 23 | Jonathan Adam Darren Turner |
Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin Vantage V8 | 2:04.482 | +21.683 |
| 24 | Aleksey Basov Andrea Bertolini Viktor Shaitar |
SMP Racing | Ferrari F458 Italia | 2:04.688 | +21.889 |
| 25 | Patrick Long Patrick Dempsey Marco Seefried |
Dempsey Racing - Proton | Porsche 911 RSR | 2:04.899 | +22.100 |
| 26 |  Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda |
Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin Vantage V8 | 2:05.355 | +22.556 |
| 27 | Gianluca Roda Paolo Ruberti Nicolai Sylvest |
Larbre Compétition | Chevrolet Corvette C7.R | 2:05.908 | +23.109 |
| 28 | Emmanuel Collard Rui Aguas François Perrodo |
AF Corse | Ferrari F458 Italia | 2:06.087 | +23.288 |
| 29 | Liam Griffin Francesco Castellacci Stuart Hall |
Aston Martin Racing | Aston Martin Vantage V8 | 2:06.612 | +23.813 |
| 30 |  Khaled Al Qubaisi Christian Ried Klaus Bachler |
Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing | Porsche 911 RSR | 2:07.572 | +24.773 |
| 31 | Mathias Beche Nicolas Prost |
Rebellion Racing | Rebellion R-One | 2:09.011 | +26.212 |
