WEC – Audi n°1 steals pole from Toyota at Fuji

Qualifying for the 6 Hours of Fuji was hotly contested between Audi and Toyota. The Japanese firm actually believed that it would manage to score a second pole position this season after the one gleaned at Silverstone, but the No. 18 Audi R1 e-tron quattro thwarted its plans. Very comfortable on the Fuji Speedway thanks to their experience of Super GT and Formula Nippon, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer made the powder speak, with a time on the average of the four laps of 1'26"577. The reigning Champions and Marcel Fässler were therefore smiling at the end of qualifying. However, Toyota proved to be able to complicate their task tomorrow, since behind the fastest of the LM P1s hit by the four rings, we find the two Toyotas at only 0 »178 and 0 »283, the n°8 of Sébastien Buemi-Anthony Davidson ahead of the n°7 of Nicolas lapierre-Kazuki Nakajima. The second Audi, entrusted this afternoon to Allan McNish and Loïc duval, is fourth at 0”848. In the end, the four LM P1 factories are grouped together within the same second, which augurs well for a great battle for tomorrow. It remains to be seen what the weather holds, with intense rain being forecast.

In LM P2, G-Drive Racing failed to secure its third pole position in a row. And for good reason, the Oreca 03-Nissan n°26 of Conway-J. Martin-Rusinov will start behind the No. 35 Oak Racing Morgan-Nissan entrusted to Plowman-Baguette-Gonzalez. The top three in the category is completed by the Zytek Z11SN-Nissan Gainer International from Wirdheim-Ueda-Hiranaka.

Thanks in particular to a once again impeccable Frédéric Makowiecki, theAston Martin Vantage n°97 which the Frenchman shares with Darren Turner and Stefan Mücke takes pole position in the GTE Pro thanks to an average time of 1'35"591. The beautiful Englishwoman is ahead of the sister car of the Richie Stanaway-Pedro Lamy pair and the Ferrari 458 Italia n°51 from AF Corse from the duo Gianmaria Bruni-Giancarlo Fisichella. The five cars in the category on track this afternoon (the #71 Ferrari of Vilander-Kobayashi being absent) are grouped into six tenths.

By setting the best qualifying time in GTE Am thanks to the No. 95 of Christoffer Nygaard-Kristian Poulsen-Bruno Senna, Aston Martin signed the double. In second place, just 0”165 behind, we find the Larbre Compétition Corvette C6.R ZR1 of Julien Canal-Patrick Bornhauser-Fernando Rees. The latter is followed by the second Aston Martin, the No. 96 of Hall-Campbell Walter-Adam.

See you tomorrow at 4:00 a.m. (French time) for the start of the 6 Hours of Fuji. Click on this link to watch the qualifying session in full.