Spa WEC: Porsche stuns Toyota to grab pole
Porsche grabbed pole for the WEC 6 Hours of Spa after coming out on top against practice pacesetter Toyota in Friday afternoon's qualifying session.
Photo by: Porsche Motorsport
Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer in the #1 919 Hybrid finished with a 1m54.097s average to end up nearly six tenths of a second faster than the #7 Toyota of Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi.
Jani trailed Stephane Sarrazin's low-downforce Toyota TS050 Hybrid after the first runs with a 1m53.658s, which Lotterer followed up on with a 1m54.439s.
Conway posted a 1m53.911s to the put his high-downforce Toyota third after the first runs, before Kobayashi lost his first lap when Dominik Kraihamer spun in the ByKolles CLM privateer LMP1 entry exiting the Bus Stop chicane.
The Japanese driver could only manage a 1m55.476s on his second lap on his tyres, which gave them a 1m54.693s average.
Nicolas Lapierre, who took over the #9 Toyota from Sarrazin, lost a lap to a track-limits violation and then put in 1m55.745s after a visit to the pits to haul the car back to third with a 1m54.701s average.
Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi took fourth on a 1m54.907s average, while Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard were a further half a second behind in fifth on a 1m55.440s.
The G-Drive Racing squad took a second consecutive LMP2 pole with Alex Lynn and Pierre Thiriet.
They ended up with a 2m02.601s average aboard their Oreca-Gibson to pip Signatech Alpine duo Gustavo Menezes and Matt Rao by just two hundredths.
The second Signatech car was third-fastest, just 0.005s ahead of the best of the Manor cars driven by Jean-Eric Vergne and Tor Graves.
Manor's second entry will start from the back of the grid after Vitaly Petrov hit the barriers at Turn 9, bringing out the red flags.
Ferrari beats Ford in GT
Ferrari claimed GTE Pro pole position with the factory AF Corse-run car driven by Davide Rigon and Sam Bird.
Rigon claimed the fastest time of the session during the first runs aboard the #71 Ferrari 488 GTE, before Bird emerged fastest of the second group of drivers.
He posted a 2m15.114s before improving to a 2m15.096s on his second lap on a new set of tyres, which gave the AF duo an average of 2m15.017s.
That put them almost exactly four tenths up on the Ganassi Ford GT qualified by Olivier Pla and Stefan Mucke, who took a 2m15.418s average.
Pla had trailed Andy Priaulx by just under four hundredths in the first runs, but Mucke ended up three tenths up on Harry Tincknell to reverse the positions.
The second AF Ferrari shared by James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi took fourth ahead of the two factory Porsche 911 RSRs.
GTE Am qualifying honours went to the Aston Martin Vantage GTE shared by Paul Dalla Lana and Pedro Lamy.
P1/P2 results:
Pos. | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Andre Lotterer Neel Jani Nick Tandy |
Porsche 919 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'54.097 | |
2 | 7 | Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'54.693 | 0.596 |
3 | 9 | Stéphane Sarrazin Nicolas Lapierre Yuji Kunimoto |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'54.701 | 0.604 |
4 | 8 | Anthony Davidson Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'54.907 | 0.810 |
5 | 2 | Timo Bernhard Brendon Hartley Earl Bamber |
Porsche 919 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'55.440 | 1.343 |
6 | 26 | Roman Rusinov Pierre Thiriet Alex Lynn |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 2'02.601 | 8.504 |
7 | 36 | Romain Dumas Gustavo Menezes Matt Rao |
Alpine A470 | LMP2 | 2'02.624 | 8.527 |
8 | 35 | Nelson Panciatici Pierre Ragues Andre Negrao |
Alpine A470 | LMP2 | 2'02.629 | 8.532 |
9 | 24 | Jean-Eric Vergne Jonathan Hirschi Tor Graves |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 2'02.632 | 8.535 |
10 | 13 | Nelson Piquet Jr. David Heinemeier Hansson Mathias Beche |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 2'03.619 | 9.522 |
11 | 4 | Oliver Webb Dominik Kraihamer James Rossiter |
ENSO CLM P1/01 | LMP1 | 2'03.827 | 9.730 |
12 | 34 | Karun Chandhok Nigel Moore Philip Hanson |
Ligier JSP 217 | LMP2 | 2'04.176 | 10.079 |
13 | 28 | François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard Matthieu Vaxivière |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 2'05.058 | 10.961 |
14 | 37 | David Cheng Tristan Gommendy Alex Brundle |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 2'05.421 | 11.324 |
15 | 31 | Bruno Senna Julien Canal Nicolas Prost |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 2'05.614 | 11.517 |
16 | 38 | Oliver Jarvis Ho-Pin Tung Thomas Laurent |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 2'14.220 | 20.123 |
GTE results:
Pos. | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Avg Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 71 | Sam Bird Davide Rigon |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 2'15.017 | |
2 | 66 | Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla Billy Johnson |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 2'15.418 | 0.401 |
3 | 67 | Pipo Derani Harry Tincknell Andy Priaulx |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 2'15.565 | 0.548 |
4 | 51 | James Calado Alessandro Pier Guidi |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 2'15.765 | 0.748 |
5 | 91 | Richard Lietz Frédéric Makowiecki |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 2'16.862 | 1.845 |
6 | 92 | Michael Christensen Kevin Estre |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE PRO | 2'17.010 | 1.993 |
7 | 95 | Marco Sorensen Nicki Thiim Richie Stanaway |
Aston Martin Vantage | LMGTE PRO | 2'17.156 | 2.139 |
8 | 97 | Darren Turner Jonathan Adam Daniel Serra |
Aston Martin Vantage | LMGTE PRO | 2'17.640 | 2.623 |
9 | 98 | Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda |
Aston Martin Vantage | LMGTE AM | 2'18.659 | 3.642 |
10 | 77 | Christian Ried Matteo Cairoli Marvin Dienst |
Porsche 911 RSR (991) | LMGTE AM | 2'19.065 | 4.048 |
11 | 54 | Francesco Castellacci Miguel Molina Thomas Flohr |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 2'19.658 | 4.641 |
12 | 61 | Matt Griffin Mok Weng Sun Keita Sawa |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE AM | 2'20.915 | 5.898 |
13 | 86 | Michael Wainwright Ben Barker Nick Foster Jr. |
Porsche 911 RSR (991) | LMGTE AM | 2'22.120 | 7.103 |
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