Shanghai WEC: Porsche edges Audi in opening practice
Brendon Hartley put Porsche on top of the timesheets in first practice for the WEC 6 Hours of Shanghai, the #1 car beating the best of the Audis by just under two tenths of a second.
Photo by: Porsche Motorsport
Most cars elected to set their hot laps early on in the 90-minute session, with Lucas di Grassi establishing a benchmark of 1m47.097s in the #8 Audi R18 e-tron quattro before improving to a 1m46.979s.
That however was swiftly beaten by the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Hartley, who wrested away the top spot with a 1m46.781s - a time that would remain unthreatened for the rest of the session.
The #8 Audi remained second fastest, 0.198s adrift, with Oliver Jarvis causing a minor drama for the car with a spin at Turn 2 . It also ground to a halt late on the session, albeit only as a precaution to prevent bodywork damage after a puncture.
Toyota took third and fourth with its pair of TS050 Hybrids, Sebastien Buemi putting the #5 car ahead of the #6 of Kamui Kobayashi with a 1m47.445s, 0.644s off the pace and two tenths clear of the sister car.
Andre Lotterer was fifth in the #7 Audi, 1.046s off the pace, but the car spent much of the session in the pits with a gearbox problem, after Benoit Treluyer stopped out on track at the 30-minute mark.
The points-leading #2 Porsche also got off to a slow start, spending nearly the entire duration of the session in the garage for a battery change. Romain Dumas managed to get out with a few minutes to spare, setting the sixth quickest time - 1.657s behind the #1 car.
Alexandre Imperatori ensured the #13 Rebellion headed its sole LMP1-L rival ByKolles by a little over a second.
G-Drive, Ferrari top classes
In LMP2, G-Drive Racing picked up where it left off in Fuji as Will Stevens took the #26 Oreca 05-Nissan to the fastest time in class, a 1m55.953s.
That was enough to beat the #36 Signatech Alpine car of Stephane Richelmi by 0.155s, with Nicolas Minassian's #27 SMP Racing car following a further three tenths back in third.
Ferrari meanwhile led the way in GTE-Pro thanks to an early effort of 2m03.752s by Gianmaria Bruni in the #51 AF Corse car.
Richard Lietz put the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche second in class, 0.115s behind, wile Ford's Stefan Mucke made it three different manufacturers in the top three with the #67 machine.
Aston Martin could only get the best of its Pro class cars, the #95, fourth, but the British marque led the way in the Am division thanks to a time of 2m04.503s from Pedro Lamy in the #98.
First practice results:
Cla | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Mark Webber Timo Bernhard Brendon Hartley |
Porsche 919 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'46.781 | |
2 | 8 | Lucas di Grassi Loic Duval Oliver Jarvis |
Audi R18 | LMP1 | 1'46.979 | 0.198 |
3 | 5 | Anthony Davidson Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'47.445 | 0.664 |
4 | 6 | Stéphane Sarrazin Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway |
Toyota TS050 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'47.632 | 0.851 |
5 | 7 | Andre Lotterer Marcel Fassler Benoit Tréluyer |
Audi R18 | LMP1 | 1'47.827 | 1.046 |
6 | 2 | Romain Dumas Neel Jani Marc Lieb |
Porsche 919 Hybrid | LMP1 | 1'48.438 | 1.657 |
7 | 13 | Alexandre Imperatori Dominik Kraihamer Matheo Tuscher |
Rebellion R-One | LMP1 | 1'52.079 | 5.298 |
8 | 4 | Simon Trummer Oliver Webb Pierre Kaffer |
CLM P1/01 | LMP1 | 1'53.156 | 6.375 |
9 | 26 | Will Stevens Roman Rusinov Alex Brundle |
Oreca 05 | LMP2 | 1'55.953 | 9.172 |
10 | 36 | Nicolas Lapierre Gustavo Menezes Stéphane Richelmi |
Alpine A460 | LMP2 | 1'56.108 | 9.327 |
11 | 27 | Maurizio Mediani Nicolas Minassian Mikhail Aleshin |
BR01 | LMP2 | 1'56.390 | 9.609 |
12 | 43 | Bruno Senna Ricardo Gonzalez Filipe Albuquerque |
Ligier JS P2 | LMP2 | 1'56.536 | 9.755 |
13 | 35 | Paul-Loup Chatin Ho-Pin Tung David Cheng |
Alpine A460 | LMP2 | 1'56.889 | 10.108 |
14 | 31 | Pipo Derani Ryan Dalziel Chris Cumming |
Ligier JS P2 | LMP2 | 1'57.077 | 10.296 |
15 | 44 | Richard Bradley Matthew Rao Alex Lynn |
Oreca 05 | LMP2 | 1'57.125 | 10.344 |
16 | 30 | Sean Gelael Antonio Giovinazzi Tom Blomqvist |
Ligier JS P2 | LMP2 | 1'57.332 | 10.551 |
17 | 45 | Mathias Beche Tor Graves Roberto Gonzalez |
Oreca 05 | LMP2 | 1'57.814 | 11.033 |
18 | 37 | Vitaly Petrov Viktor Shaytar Kirill Ladygin |
BR01 | LMP2 | 1'57.846 | 11.065 |
19 | 51 | Gianmaria Bruni James Calado |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 2'03.752 | 16.971 |
20 | 77 | Richard Lietz Michael Christensen |
Porsche 911 RSR (2016) | LMGTE PRO | 2'03.867 | 17.086 |
21 | 66 | Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 2'03.910 | 17.129 |
22 | 95 | Marco Sorensen Nicki Thiim |
Aston Martin Vantage V8 | LMGTE PRO | 2'04.096 | 17.315 |
23 | 71 | Sam Bird Davide Rigon |
Ferrari 488 GTE | LMGTE PRO | 2'04.108 | 17.327 |
24 | 97 | Darren Turner Richie Stanaway |
Aston Martin Vantage V8 | LMGTE PRO | 2'04.349 | 17.568 |
25 | 67 | Harry Tincknell Andy Priaulx |
Ford GT | LMGTE PRO | 2'04.487 | 17.706 |
26 | 98 | Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda |
Aston Martin Vantage V8 | LMGTE AM | 2'04.503 | 17.722 |
27 | 78 | Christian Ried Wolf Henzler Joel Camathias |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 2'05.575 | 18.794 |
28 | 88 | David Heinemeier Hansson Patrick Long Khaled Al Qubaisi |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 2'05.690 | 18.909 |
29 | 83 | François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard Rui Aguas |
Ferrari F458 Italia | LMGTE AM | 2'06.101 | 19.320 |
30 | 86 | Michael Wainwright Adam Carroll Ben Barker |
Porsche 911 RSR | LMGTE AM | 2'06.105 | 19.324 |
31 | 50 | Pierre Ragues Ricky Taylor Romain Brandela |
Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06 | LMGTE AM | 2'06.303 | 19.522 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments