Di Grassi and Duval’s combined effort was a 1m23.570s, enough to beat Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard in the #1 Porsche by a mere 0.025s at the climax of a closely-fought session.

It was di Grassi who set the early pace, the Brazilian lapping the Fuji circuit in 1m23.854s to put the #8 Audi R18 e-tron quattro a tenth in the clear of Kazuki Nakajima in the #5 Toyota.

The pressure was on for Duval to match his teammate’s pace, but the Frenchman did just enough to fend off the attack of the #1 Porsche, which did one flying lap in Webber’s hands before the Australian handed over to Bernhard – who in turn gave the #1 919 Hybrid back to Webber late on.

Toyota locked out the second row, with the #5 machine of Sebastien Buemi and Nakajima ending up 0.169s off the pace, but 0.042s ahead of the sister car of Kamui Kobayashi and Stephane Sarrazin.

Lacking the pace of the #8 car, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer could only secure fifth in the #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro, ahead of the #2 Porsche of Neel Jani and Marc Lieb.

Rebellion came out on top against ByKolles in the privateer LMP1 battle, 5.3s off the pace of the frontrunners.

G-Drive, Ford take class poles

In LMP2, the #26 G-Drive car of Will Stevens, Alex Brundle and Roman Rusinov took pole, as Brundle and Rusinov set an average time of 1m31.698s.

That was enough to beat the #36 Signatech-Alpine car of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stephane Richelmi by 0.221s, followed by the #30 Ligier of Sean Gelael, Antonio Giovinazzi and Giedo van der Garde.

Ford took its first ever WEC pole in the GTE-Pro class, as Stefan Mucke and Olivier Pla set an average of 1m37.681s in the #66 Ford GT.

The sister #67 car of Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx made it a one-two for the American marque, just 0.044s behind, Ticknell recovering from an off that briefly relegated he and Priaulx way down the order.

Third and fourth in class were the AF Corse Ferraris, the #71 leading the #51, followed by the #95 and #97 Aston Martins.

Pole in GTE-Am meanwhile went to the #98 machine of Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana.

Qualifying results - LMP1 & LMP2:

Pos	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Time
1	8	Lucas di Grassi Loic Duval Oliver Jarvis	Audi R18	LMP1	11	1'23.570
2	1	Mark Webber Timo Bernhard Brendon Hartley	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	10	1'23.595
3	5	Anthony Davidson Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	11	1'23.739
4	6	Stéphane Sarrazin Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	11	1'23.781
5	7	Andre Lotterer Marcel Fassler Benoit Tréluyer	Audi R18	LMP1	9	1'23.856
6	2	Romain Dumas Neel Jani Marc Lieb	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	11	1'24.134
7	13	Alexandre Imperatori Dominik Kraihamer Matheo Tuscher	Rebellion R-One	LMP1	9	1'28.837
8	4	Simon Trummer Oliver Webb Pierre Kaffer	CLM P1/01	LMP1	9	1'29.827
9	26	Will Stevens Roman Rusinov Alex Brundle	Oreca 05	LMP2	10	1'31.698
10	36	Nicolas Lapierre Gustavo Menezes Stéphane Richelmi	Alpine A460	LMP2	12	1'31.919
11	30	Giedo van der Garde Sean Gelael Antonio Giovinazzi	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	12	1'31.945
12	42	Jonny Kane Lewis Williamson	Gibson 015S	LMP2	12	1'32.007
13	43	Bruno Senna Ricardo Gonzalez Filipe Albuquerque	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	11	1'32.128
14	44	Roberto Merhi Richard Bradley Matthew Rao	Oreca 05	LMP2	11	1'32.214
15	45	Shinji Nakano Tor Graves Alex Lynn	Oreca 05	LMP2	11	1'32.536
16	31	Pipo Derani Ryan Dalziel Chris Cumming	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	11	1'32.932
17	37	Vitaly Petrov Viktor Shaytar Kirill Ladygin	BR01	LMP2	12	1'33.046
18	27	Maurizio Mediani Nicolas Minassian Mikhail Aleshin	BR01	LMP2	11	1'33.133
19	35	Paul-Loup Chatin Ho-Pin Tung David Cheng	Alpine A460	LMP2	12	1'33.472

Qualifying results - GTE

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Avg Time
1	66	Stefan Mücke   Olivier Pla	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	1'37.681
2	67	Harry Tincknell   Andy Priaulx	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	1'37.725
3	71	Sam Bird   Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	1'38.010
4	51	Gianmaria Bruni   James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	1'38.103
5	95	Marco Sorensen   Nicki Thiim	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE PRO	1'38.175
6	97	Darren Turner   Richie Stanaway	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE PRO	1'38.442
7	77	Richard Lietz   Michael Christensen	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	1'38.910
8	98	Pedro Lamy   Paul Dalla Lana   Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE AM	1'39.490
9	83	François Perrodo   Emmanuel Collard   Rui Aguas	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	1'39.863
10	50	Pierre Ragues   Ricky Taylor   Yutaka Yamagishi	Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06	LMGTE AM	1'39.956
11	88	David Heinemeier Hansson   Patrick Long   Khaled Al Qubaisi	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'40.587
12	78	Christian Ried   Wolf Henzler   Joel Camathias	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'40.834
13	86	Michael Wainwright   Adam Carroll   Ben Barker	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	1'41.734