Qualifying report

WEC Bahrain

Bahrain WEC: Porsche secures pole for final LMP1 race

Nick Tandy and Neel Jani claimed a final FIA World Endurance Championship pole position for Porsche before it bows out of LMP1 after this weekend's Bahrain round.

Gary Watkins

Edited: Nov 17, 2017, 3:42 PM

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LMP1 pole sitters Neel Jani, Andre Lotterer, Nick Tandy, Porsche Team

The drivers of the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid beat the best of the Toyotas to the top of the timesheets by nearly three tenths of a second.

Tandy had trailed Mike Conway in the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid by more than a second in the first runs after making a mistake on his lap.

Jani then posted the fastest time of the session with a 1m39.084s, which prompted Porsche to send Tandy back out for a second run.

The Briton improved to a 1m39.683s, which gave the #1 Porsche an average of 1m39.383s.

Jose Maria Lopez was nearly seven tenths slower than Jani, which left the #7 Toyota in second with a 1m39.646s average.

Tandy said: "It was Neel's lap that made us think let's go for pole — when I saw 39.0, I thought wow. What a great result for a our last weekend."

Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard took third place with a 1m40.011s average, while Kazuki Nakajima and Anthony Davidson were fourth in the Toyota that has won the past two WEC rounds.

Andre Negrao and Gustavo Menezes took LMP2 pole for the Signatech Alpine squad.

Negrao was second fastest after the first runs aboard the French team's Oreca-Gibson 07 while Menezes lapped within three tenths of his team-mate's time.

That consistency gave them a 1m47.227s average and pole by fourth tenths.

Ho-Pin Tung struggled in the best of the Jackie Chan DC Racing Orecas on the first runs, but Thomas Laurent was able to leapfrog the car up to second after setting the quickest lap of the second batch of drivers.

Their average of 1m47.612s put them just over a tenth up on the championship-leading Rebellion Oreca qualified by Bruno Senna and Julien Canal.

Ferrari on pole for GTE decider

AF Corse Ferrari drivers Davide Rigon and Sam Bird claimed a fourth GTE Pro pole of the year.

Rigon posted the fastest time in class witha 1m56.021s in the first runs and then Bird was only a couple of hundredths slower as they ended up on a 1m59.033s average aboard the #71 Ferrari 488 GTE.

That put them three tenths up on Aston Martin duo Darren Turner and Jonny Adam, who claimed second position with a 1m56.372s average.

Ford's Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell were the highest-placed pairing with a realistic chance of taking the title in third place.

Their average in the #67 Ganassi Ford GT ended up on a 1m56.463s average, which put them four tenths up on points leaders James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari.

Frederic Makowiecki and Richard Lietz, who lie second in the points, were only sixth fastest in their factory Porsche 911 RSR.

Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana took a seventh GTE Am class pole of the season in their Aston Martin Vantage GTE.

Prototype results:

Pos.#DriversCarClassTimeGap 1 1 germany Andre Lotterer
switzerland Neel Jani
united_kingdom Nick Tandy Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 1'39.383 2 7 japan Kamui Kobayashi
Mike Conway
argentina Jose Maria Lopez Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'39.646 0.263 3 2 germany Timo Bernhard
new_zealand Brendon Hartley
Earl Bamber Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 1'40.011 0.628 4 8 united_kingdom Anthony Davidson
japan Kazuki Nakajima
switzerland Sébastien Buemi Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'40.774 1.391 5 36 france Nicolas Lapierre
brazil Andre Negrao
united_states Gustavo Menezes Alpine A470 LMP2 1'47.227 7.844 6 38 Oliver Jarvis
china Ho-Pin Tung
france Thomas Laurent Oreca 07 LMP2 1'47.612 8.229 7 31 brazil Bruno Senna
france Julien Canal
france Nicolas Prost Oreca 07 LMP2 1'47.721 8.338 8 26 france Loic Duval
russia Roman Rusinov
france Leo Roussel Oreca 07 LMP2 1'47.989 8.606 9 25 russia Vitaly Petrov
switzerland Simon Trummer
mexico Roberto Gonzalez Oreca 07 LMP2 1'48.176 8.793 10 24 france Jean-Eric Vergne
united_kingdom Ben Hanley
Matt Rao Oreca 07 LMP2 1'48.374 8.991 11 28 france François Perrodo
france Emmanuel Collard
france Matthieu Vaxiviere Oreca 07 LMP2 1'48.386 9.003 12 13 brazil Nelson Piquet Jr.
denmark David Heinemeier Hansson
switzerland Mathias Beche Oreca 07 LMP2 1'48.387 9.004 13 37 china David Cheng
france Tristan Gommendy
united_kingdom Alex Brundle Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.102 9.719

GTE results:

Pos.#DriversCarClassAvg TimeGap 1 71 united_kingdom Sam Bird
italy Davide Rigon Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'56.033 2 97 Darren Turner
Jonathan Adam Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE PRO 1'56.372 0.339 3 67 Harry Tincknell
guernsey Andy Priaulx Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'56.463 0.430 4 51 James Calado
italy Alessandro Pier Guidi Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'56.881 0.848 5 95 denmark Marco Sorensen
denmark Nicki Thiim Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE PRO 1'57.019 0.986 6 91 austria Richard Lietz
france Frédéric Makowiecki Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'57.516 1.483 7 92 denmark Michael Christensen
france Kevin Estre Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'57.522 1.489 8 66 germany Stefan Mücke
france Olivier Pla Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'57.588 1.555 9 98 portugal Pedro Lamy
canada Paul Dalla Lana
austria Mathias Lauda Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 2'00.111 4.078 10 61 ireland Matt Griffin
singapore Mok Weng Sun
japan Keita Sawa Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'00.285 4.252 11 77 germany Christian Ried
italy Matteo Cairoli
germany Marvin Dienst Porsche 911 RSR (991) LMGTE AM 2'00.395 4.362 12 54 italy Francesco Castellacci
spain Miguel Molina
switzerland Thomas Flohr Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'01.352 5.319 13 86 united_kingdom Michael Wainwright
Ben Barker
Nick Foster Porsche 911 RSR (991) LMGTE AM

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