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Australia
Qualifying report

Webber and Hartley take Silverstone WEC pole for Porsche

Porsche celebrated a 1-2 in qualifying for the first round of the 2015 World Endurance Championship at Silverstone on Saturday.

#17 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley

#17 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley

Porsche Motorsport

#17 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley
Mark Webber, Porsche Team
#17 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley
#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro: Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis
#1 Toyota Racing Toyota TS040-Hybrid: Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima
#8 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro: Lucas Di Grassi, Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis
#1 Toyota Racing Toyota TS040-Hybrid: Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima
Pitlane Atmosphere

The #17 car driven by antipodean duo Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley outpaced the sister 919 Hybrid of Neel Jani and Romain Dumas by 0.619s over the two-lap average, with a combined effort of 1m39.721. Hartley secured the pole with the fastest lap of qualifying – a 1m39.534s lap.

Forming the second row of the grid will be the #8 Audi R18 e-tron quattro and the #1 Toyota TS 040 HYBRID, with the #7 Audi and #2 Toyota Racing sharing the final ‘manufacturer LMP1 row.’

As expected, it was a close session with just 1.9 seconds separating the top six cars.

As per the Free Practice sessions it was the G-Drive Racing team that topped the times with the ‘Latin’ flavoured No.28 Ligier-Nissan of Gustavo Yacaman, Pipo Derani and Ricardo Gonzalez starting from pole. Gonzalez and Derani set a combined 1m48.021s to shade the #26 G-Drive car by just 0.062s.

The new ORECA 05-Nissan of the Hong Kong entered KCMG team placed third, with their Porsche ‘loaned’ driver Nick Tandy putting in an impressive last ditch effort to secure the position.

The #95 Aston Martin Racing entry achieved the best LMGTE Pro two-lap average with Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorenson setting the times which resulted in a 1m59.970s average. This was despite WEC debutant Sorensen stating he had a scrappy lap when he made a couple of small mistakes.

Joining the Aston on the front row in the LMGTE Pro class will be the #99 car of Fernando Rees, Alex MacDowall and Richie Stanaway. The Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke Vantage V8 placed third to make it an Aston clean sweep on their home turf.

Aston Martin Racing celebrated another pole in the LMGTE Am class with the #98 Vantage V8 driven by Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana setting a combined 2m01.998s lap. Their time was 0.939s quicker than the Larbre Competition Chevrolet Corvette C7, driven by Gianluca Roda and Paolo Ruberti.

Tomorrow’s first round of the WEC is scheduled to begin at 12.00 local time.

 Pos   Driver   Car / Engine   Time   Gap 
Timo Bernhard
Mark Webber
Brendon Hartley
Porsche 1'39.721  
Romain Dumas
Neel Jani
Marc Lieb
Porsche 1'40.340 0.619
Lucas di Grassi
Loìc Duval
Oliver Jarvis
Audi 1'40.352 0.631
Anthony Davidson
Sebastien Buemi
Kazuki Nakajima
Toyota 1'40.382 0.661
Marcel Fassler
Andre Lotterer
Benoit Tréluyer
Audi 1'41.153 1.432
Alexander Wurz
S.Sarrazin
Mike Conway
Toyota 1'41.694 1.973
Gustavo Yacamán
Luis Derani
Ricardo González
Ligier/Nissan 1'48.021 8.300
Roman Rusinov
Julien Canal
Sam Bird
Ligier/Nissan 1'48.083 8.362
Matt Howson
Richard Bradley
Nick Tandy
ORECA/Nissan 1'49.389 9.668
10  N.Panciatici
Paul-Loup Chatin
V.Capillaire
Alpine/Nissan 1'49.498 9.777
11  Simon Trummer
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Christian Klien
CLM/AER 1'50.622 10.901
12  Scott Sharp
Ryan Dalziel
David Hansson
HPD 1'51.551 11.830
13  Nick Leventis
Danny Watts
Jonny Kane
Dome/Nissan 1'52.284 12.563
14  Jacques Nicolet
Jean-Marc Merlin
Erik Maris
Ligier/Nissan 1'53.457 13.736
15  Ed Brown
Jon Fogarty
David Brabham
HPD 1'55.491 15.770
16  C.Nygaard
Marco Sorensen
Nicki Thiim
Aston Martin 1'59.970 20.249
17  Alex MacDowall
Fernando Rees
Richie Stanaway
Aston Martin 2'00.175 20.454
18  Darren Turner
Stefan Mücke
Aston Martin 2'00.333 20.612
19  Richard Lietz
M.Christensen
Porsche 2'00.651 20.930
20  Gianmaria Bruni
Toni Vilander
Ferrari 2'00.701 20.980
21  Patrick Pilet
F.Makowiecki
Porsche 2'01.591 21.870
22  Paul Dalla Lana
Pedro Lamy
Mathias Lauda
Aston Martin 2'01.998 22.277
23  Davide Rigon
James Calado
Ferrari 2'02.156 22.435
24  Gianluca Roda
Paolo Ruberti
Kristian Poulsen
Chevrolet 2'02.937 23.216
25  Christian Ried
K.Al Qubaisi
Klaus Bachler
Porsche 2'03.134 23.413
26  François Perrodo
Emmanuel Collard
Rui Águas
Ferrari 2'03.482 23.761
27  Viktor Shaitar
Andrea Bertolini
Aleksey Basov
Ferrari 2'04.114 24.393
28  F.Castellacci
Roald Goethe
Stuart Hall
Aston Martin 2'05.050 25.329
29  Patrick Dempsey
Patrick Long
Marco Seefried
Porsche 2'06.024 26.303

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