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Edition

Australia
Qualifying report

Silverstone WEC: Toyota locks out front row in qualifying

The #7 Toyota claimed its first FIA World Endurance Championship pole position of the season for this weekend's Silverstone round.

Pole sitters #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez

Pole sitters #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez

JEP / Motorsport Images

Mike Conway outpaced Fernando Alonso in the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid in the first runs by just two hundredths of a second before Jose Maria Lopez went eight tenths quicker than Kazuki Nakajima. 

That gave Conway and Lopez a 1m36.895s average, which compared with 1m37.306s for Alonso and Nakajima. 

The Briton set his 1m36.769s, which stood as the fastest lap of the session, on his second run after aborting his first go at a time.

Conway said: "It's nice to get a pole after losing one at Spa [to a technical infringement]. I made a mistake starting the lap and another in Turn 4 [the Loop], so aborted the lap and went again. 

"I was conservative on track limits, but fortunately it was enough."

The 1m37.362s lap Nakajima lost to a track limits violation wouldn't have altered the order at the top of the timesheets. 

The Toyotas ended up more than two seconds clear of the best of the non-hybrid privateer LMP1s, as Vitaly Petrov and Jenson Button took third in the best of SMP Racing's AER-powered BR Engineering BR1s. 

Their average of 1m38.932s was seven tenths up on that of the sister car driven by Stephane Sarrazin and Egor Orudzhev. 

The two Rebellion-Gibson R-13s took fifth and sixth positions, Mathias Beche and Gustavo Menezes beating teammates Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer by three tenths, ahead of the DragonSpeed BR1 and the ByKolles ENSO CLM P1/01.

The Jota Sport-run Jackie Chan DC Racing squad blocked out the top two positions in LMP2. 

Jazeman Jaafar and Nabil Jeffri took the class pole in the #37 Oreca 07 with a 1m44.896s average, which was just over a tenth ahead of teammates Stephane Richelmi and Gabriel Aubry. 

The Signatech Alpine Oreca took third, a further three tenths in arrears, with Nicolas Lapierre and Pierre Thiriet. 

Stefan Mucke and Olivier Pla claimed the GTE Pro class pole for Ford by just over a tenth from a resurgent Aston Martin. 

Mucke topped the times in the first runs with 1m55.727s in the #66 Ganassi Ford GT, before Pla followed it up with a 1m55.796s. 

That gave them an average of 1m55.727s, which was just clear of the new Aston Martin Vantage GTE shared by Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin. 

The two Aston drivers were separated by under a tenth on their way to a 1m55.805s average, while the second Vantage driven by Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen was three tenths behind on 1m56.103s.

The second of the Ganassi Fords ended up fourth on a 1m56.204s in the hands of Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell. 

Porsche drivers Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre took fifth ahead of Ferrari pairing Sam Bird and Davide Rigon, with Augusto Farfus and Antonio Felix da Costa ending up seventh in the best of the BMWs.

The GTE Am pole was taken the Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR driven by Jorg Bergmeister and Egidio Perfetti. 

The WEC 6 Hours of Silverstone will be streamed live on Motorsport.tv from 11am GMT on Sunday.

LMP results:

Pos. # Drivers Car Class Time Avg. Gap
1 7 Japan Kamui Kobayashi 
United Kingdom Mike Conway 
Argentina Jose Maria Lopez 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'36.895  
2 8 Spain Fernando Alonso 
Japan Kazuki Nakajima 
Switzerland Sébastien Buemi 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'37.306 0.411
3 11 United Kingdom Jenson Button 
Russian Federation Vitaly Petrov 
Russian Federation Mikhail Aleshin 
BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'38.932 2.037
4 17 France Stéphane Sarrazin 
Russian Federation Egor Orudzhev 
BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'39.070 2.175
5 3 Switzerland Mathias Beche 
France Thomas Laurent 
United States Gustavo Menezes 
Rebellion R13 LMP1 1'39.247 2.352
6 1 Germany Andre Lotterer 
Switzerland Neel Jani 
Rebellion R13 LMP1 1'39.613 2.718
7 10 Sweden Henrik Hedman 
Netherlands Renger van der Zande 
United Kingdom Ben Hanley 
BR Engineering BR1 LMP1 1'41.412 4.517
8 4 United Kingdom Oliver Webb 
Austria Rene Binder 
ENSO CLM P1/01 LMP1 1'41.839 4.944
9 37 Malaysia Nabil Jeffri 
Malaysia Weiron Tan 
Malaysia Jazeman Jaafar 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'44.896 8.001
10 38 China Ho-Pin Tung 
Monaco Stéphane Richelmi 
France Gabriel Aubry 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'45.083 8.188
11 36 France Nicolas Lapierre 
France Pierre Thiriet 
Brazil Andre Negrao 
Alpine A470 LMP2 1'46.370 9.475
12 28 France Loic Duval 
France François Perrodo 
France Matthieu Vaxiviere 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'47.048 10.153
13 29 Netherlands Giedo van der Garde 
Netherlands Nyck de Vries 
Netherlands Frits van Eerd 
Dallara P217 LMP2 1'47.107 10.212
14 31 United Kingdom Anthony Davidson 
Venezuela Pastor Maldonado 
Mexico Roberto Gonzalez 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'47.270 10.375
15 50 France Romano Ricci 
France Erwin Creed 
Japan Yoshiharu Mori
Ligier JSP 217 LMP2 1'49.489 12.594

GTE results:

Pos. # Drivers Car Class Avg. Time Gap
1 66 Germany Stefan Mücke 
France Olivier Pla 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'55.727  
2 97 Belgium Maxime Martin 
United Kingdom Alex Lynn 
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE PRO 1'55.805 0.078
3 95 Denmark Marco Sorensen 
Denmark Nicki Thiim 
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE PRO 1'56.103 0.376
4 67 United Kingdom Harry Tincknell 
Guernsey Andy Priaulx 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'56.204 0.477
5 92 Denmark Michael Christensen 
France Kevin Estre 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'56.446 0.719
6 71 United Kingdom Sam Bird 
Italy Davide Rigon 
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 1'56.510 0.783
7 82 Portugal Antonio Felix da Costa 
Brazil Augusto Farfus 
BMW M8 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'56.731 1.004
8 81 Netherlands Nick Catsburg 
Germany Martin Tomczyk 
BMW M8 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'56.992 1.265
9 51 United Kingdom James Calado 
Italy Alessandro Pier Guidi 
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 1'57.105 1.378
10 91 Italy Gianmaria Bruni 
Austria Richard Lietz 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'57.151 1.424
11 56 Germany Jörg Bergmeister 
United States Patrick Lindsey 
Norway Egidio Perfetti 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'59.001 3.274
12 77 Germany Christian Ried 
Australia Matt Campbell 
France Julien Andlauer 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'59.203 3.476
13 90 United Kingdom Jonathan Adam 
Turkey Salih Yoluc 
Ireland Charles Eastwood 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 1'59.275 3.548
14 98 Portugal Pedro Lamy 
Canada Paul Dalla Lana 
Austria Mathias Lauda 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 1'59.338 3.611
15 88 Italy Gianluca Roda 
Italy Matteo Cairoli 
Italy Giorgio Roda 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 1'59.757 4.030
16 54 Italy Giancarlo Fisichella 
Italy Francesco Castellacci 
Switzerland Thomas Flohr 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 1'59.809 4.082
17 70 Monaco Olivier Beretta 
Italy Eddie Cheever III 
Japan Motoaki Ishikawa 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'00.003 4.276
18 61 Ireland Matthew Griffin 
Singapore Mok Weng Sun 
Japan Keita Sawa 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'00.118 4.391
19 86 United Kingdom Michael Wainwright 
United Kingdom Benjamin Barker 
Australia Alex Davison 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE AM 2'00.221 4.494

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Edition

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