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Edition

Australia
Practice report

Shanghai WEC: Audi leads Toyota in final practice

Audi topped the third and final practice session for the WEC 6 Hours of Shanghai, Oliver Jarvis putting the #8 machine three tenths clear of the leading Toyota.

#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro: Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis

Photo by: Vision Sport Agency

Once again, the hybrid LMP1 cars all set their quickest times in the opening minutes of the hour-long session, with Jarvis heading the charge on a 1m44.505s, 0.089s up on the Friday benchmark set by Porsche driver Brendon Hartley.

That was enough to head Stephane Sarrazin in the #6 Toyota TS050 Hybrid by 0.314s, with Porsche making it three different manufacturers in the top three thanks to Marc Lieb's early effort of 1m44.913s in the #2 machine, four tenths behind Jarvis.

Benoit Treluyer put the second of the Audi R18 e-tron quattros in fourth, 0.474s down on the sister #8 car, half a second ahead of Hartley in the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid, which was fifth fastest after sweeping the timesheets on Friday.

The second Toyota, the #5, was forced into the pits at the start of the session, and could only record the sixth quickest time - 1.158s off the pace - when it returned to the track in Sebastien Buemi's hands.

Rebellion regained the upper hand over ByKolles in the duel for LMP1-L honours by eight tenths.

Signatech, Ford in the ascendancy 

In LMP2, it was the points-leading #36 Signatech Alpine, wheeled by Nicolas Lapierre, that set the pace with a 1m54.355s - albeit a mere 0.005s up on the #30 ESM Ligier of Antonio Giovinazzi.

RGR Sport by Morand made it two Ligiers in the class top three thanks to Bruno Senna, who was a further second back in third place.

G-Drive, which led the way in both Friday session, was only fifth fastest, 1.3s down on the #36 car.

The order in GTE-Pro was also totally different to Friday, as Ford established supremacy over its class rivals thanks to a late flyer from Olivier Pla, who set the pace with a 2m01.329s in the #66.

Aston Martin took second and third places, Richie Stanaway in the #97 leading Nicki Thiim in the #95, followed by the second of the Chip Ganassi-run Fords.

Ferrari meanwhile went from being GTE pacesetters to also-rans, occupying fifth and sixth places in class.

In GTE-Am, Pedro Lamy's time of 2m03.845s ensured the #98 Aston Martin led the way.

Third practice results:

Cla#DriversCarClassTimeGap
1 8  Lucas di Grassi 
 Loic Duval 
 Oliver Jarvis 
Audi R18 LMP1 1'44.505  
2 6  Stéphane Sarrazin 
 Kamui Kobayashi 
 Mike Conway 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'44.819 0.314
3 2  Romain Dumas 
 Neel Jani 
 Marc Lieb 
Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 1'44.913 0.408
4 7  Andre Lotterer 
 Marcel Fassler 
 Benoit Tréluyer 
Audi R18 LMP1 1'44.979 0.474
5 1  Mark Webber 
 Timo Bernhard 
 Brendon Hartley 
Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 1'45.418 0.913
6 5  Anthony Davidson 
 Kazuki Nakajima 
 Sébastien Buemi 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'45.663 1.158
7 13  Alexandre Imperatori 
 Dominik Kraihamer 
 Matheo Tuscher 
Rebellion R-One LMP1 1'50.748 6.243
8 4  Simon Trummer 
 Oliver Webb 
 Pierre Kaffer 
CLM P1/01 LMP1 1'51.602 7.097
9 36  Nicolas Lapierre 
 Gustavo Menezes 
 Stéphane Richelmi 
Alpine A460 LMP2 1'54.355 9.850
10 30  Sean Gelael 
 Antonio Giovinazzi 
 Tom Blomqvist 
Ligier JS P2 LMP2 1'54.360 9.855
11 43  Bruno Senna 
 Ricardo Gonzalez 
 Filipe Albuquerque 
Ligier JS P2 LMP2 1'55.472 10.967
12 35  Paul-Loup Chatin 
 Ho-Pin Tung 
 David Cheng 
Alpine A460 LMP2 1'55.559 11.054
13 26  Will Stevens 
 Roman Rusinov 
 Alex Brundle 
Oreca 05 LMP2 1'55.604 11.099
14 31  Pipo Derani 
 Ryan Dalziel 
 Chris Cumming 
Ligier JS P2 LMP2 1'55.865 11.360
15 27  Maurizio Mediani 
 Nicolas Minassian 
 Mikhail Aleshin 
BR01 LMP2 1'56.046 11.541
16 44  Richard Bradley 
 Matthew Rao 
 Alex Lynn 
Oreca 05 LMP2 1'56.615 12.110
17 37  Vitaly Petrov 
 Viktor Shaytar 
 Kirill Ladygin 
BR01 LMP2 1'56.703 12.198
18 45  Mathias Beche 
 Tor Graves 
 Roberto Gonzalez 
Oreca 05 LMP2 1'56.742 12.237
19 66  Stefan Mücke 
 Olivier Pla 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 2'01.329 16.824
20 97  Darren Turner 
 Richie Stanaway 
Aston Martin Vantage V8 LMGTE PRO 2'02.044 17.539
21 95  Marco Sorensen 
 Nicki Thiim 
Aston Martin Vantage V8 LMGTE PRO 2'02.393 17.888
22 67  Harry Tincknell 
  Andy Priaulx 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 2'02.505 18.000
23 71  Sam Bird 
 Davide Rigon 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 2'02.728 18.223
24 51  Gianmaria Bruni 
 James Calado 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 2'03.047 18.542
25 98  Pedro Lamy 
 Paul Dalla Lana 
 Mathias Lauda 
Aston Martin Vantage V8 LMGTE AM 2'03.845 19.340
26 77  Richard Lietz 
 Michael Christensen 
Porsche 911 RSR (2016) LMGTE PRO 2'03.900 19.395
27 83  François Perrodo 
 Emmanuel Collard 
 Rui Aguas 
Ferrari F458 Italia LMGTE AM 2'04.179 19.674
28 50  Pierre Ragues 
 Ricky Taylor 
 Romain Brandela 
Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06 LMGTE AM 2'04.326 19.821
29 88  David Heinemeier Hansson
 Patrick Long 
 Khaled Al Qubaisi 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'05.007 20.502
30 86  Michael Wainwright 
 Adam Carroll 
 Ben Barker 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'05.224 20.719
31 78  Christian Ried 
 Wolf Henzler 
 Joel Camathias 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'06.358 21.853

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