Trying to avoid the
expected heavy rain, qualifying got underway a bit earlier than
planned this afternoon. The GTE cars kicked off todays qualifying
session in mixed conditions, but managed to get out with intermediate
tyres. By the time the qualifying session for the LMP's got underway
conditions got worse again, pulling out the full wets again.
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| © FIA WEC/Adrenal Media |
Frederic Makowiecki and
Richard Lietz scored their first pole position of the season in the
GTE Pro class with their #91 Porsche 911 RSR. With an average laptime
of 1.47.577 they kept both Ford GT's behind them. Andy Priaulx &
Harry Tincknell were second fastest, 0.441 seconds behind the
Porsche. Stefan Mücke & Olivier Pla parked their #66 Ford on
third place, just over half a second behind the #67. The #71 AF Corse
Ferrari and #92 Porsche completed the top 5.
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| © FIA WEC/Adrenal Media |
Clearwater racing took
their first pole position in the World Endurance Championship,
maximising their advantage of track knowledge as the sole Asian team
in the class. Weng Sun Mok and Matt Griffin set a time of 1.49.408,
holding off Matteo Cairoli & Christian Ried in the #77
Dempsey-Proton Porsche and Pedro Lamy & Paul Dalla Lana in the
#98 Aston Martin. The 3 teams battling for the championship on the
top 3 spots of the class, GTE Am will be one to watch tomorrow !
Conditions
got worse when the LMP cars went on track for their 20 minute
qualifying session. Some teams still managed to start on intermediate
tyres, but had to switch to full wets early in the session.
The
battle for pole position again went on between both Porsche 919
Hybrids, who scored their fourth front row lockout of the season.
Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber took pole position with an average
time of 1.35.068, only 28 thousands of a second faster than Nick
Tandy (who set the fastest time overall) and André Lotterer.
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| © FIA WEC/Adrenal Media |
The extra
point for pole position extends the #2 crews lead in the championship
to 52 points. If they finish ahead of the #8 Toyota tomorrow, Timo
Bernhard, Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley will be crowned as the 2017
drivers champions. More good news for Brendon Hartley came out
yesterday evening, when STR Toro Rosso announced Hartley as their
second driver in next weeks F1 race in Austin. That's 3 different
cars in 3 different championships in 3 consecutive weekend for the
Kiwi.
Toyota
had a frustrating run in qualifying. The #8 TS050 of Sébastian Buemi
and Kazuki Nakajima seemed to have the pace to challenge Porsche for
pole position, but was delayed in traffic twice, losing out the best
performance of their tyres. With an average time of 1.35.355 they
qualified third, ahead of the #7 Toyota which struggled for pace and
grip on the wet track.
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| © FIA WEC/Adrenal Media |
Vaillante
Rebellion also scored a front row lockout in the LMP2 class. Nelson
Piquet Jr and David Henemeier Hansson claimed their first pole
position of the season in the #13 Oreca 07. With an average laptime
of 1.44.196, they were over 0.7 seconds faster than the second
Vaillante of Bruno Senna and Julien Canal. Championship leaders
Ho-Pin Tung and Thomas Laurent in the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing took
third place in 1.45.078. Austin winners Signatech Alpine put the #36
also on the second row of the grid, the #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing
completed the top 5.
This morning, on track action started with a "Circuit Safari" ... The concept: put race fans & media in a bus on the track and release the race cars. It's kind of a Japanese tradition and has been organised for the first time today during a WEC race. Every team had to send out 1 car on track during the session, but evetually all cars went out for an unprecedented show on the Fuji Speedway. It certainly made for some unique footage as can be seen below:
In the
third and final practice session, Toyota set the pace again after
being quickest in yesterday's afternoon session too. Sébastien Buemi
put the #8 TS050 Hybrid on top with a lap of 1.35.414, 0.850 seconds
faster than Earl Bamber in the #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid. André Lotterer
was fastest again in the #1 Porsche in third, Mike Conway set the
best time in the #7 Toyota.
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| © Toyota Motorsport Gmbh |
Jackie Chan DC Racing
continued to dominate in the LMP2 class, now with the #37 Oreca 07 of
Alex Brundle in 1.43.745. Nelson Piquet Jr came 0.002 seconds short
in his #13 Vaillante Rebellion to snatch away the top spot. The
second Vaillante Rebellion of Bruno Senna was third fastest, 0.316
seconds behind its sister car.
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| © FIA WEC/Adrenal Media |
Porsche looked strong
again in the GTE Pro class, both Richard Lietz (1:47.724) and Fred
Makowiecki (1:48.125 ) in the #91 Porsche 911 RSR outpacing the rest
of the field. Michael Christensen was third fastest in the #92
Porsche (1:48.358), ahead of Harry Tincknell in the #67 Ford GT.
Matteo Cairoli was oustanding in the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche in
GTE Am, his time of 1.49.387 putting him right in the mix with the
Pro cars. Matt Griffin in the #61 Clearwater Ferrari and Francesco
Castellacci in the #54 Spirit of Race completed the final top 3 of
the morning session.
The race is due to start at 11.00h local time tomorrow, unless the weather decides differently.
Qualifying results
LMP1 & LMP2
LM GTE Pro & Am
Kristof Vermeulen.