Audi denies Toyota home pole, Stanaway 2nd in GTE

Autosport

Audi edged out Toyota to claim pole position for Sunday’s sixth round of the World Endurance Championship at Fuji.

Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer topped the times aboard the #1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro with a four-lap average of 1m26.577s, which put them just under two tenths clear of Sebatien Buemi and Anthony Davidson in the best of the Toyota TS030 HYBRIDs.

Treluyer, who will be joined in the car by Marcel Fassler along with Lotterer for the race, said: “I had no idea I was fighting with the #7 car; I was just giving my best.

“On the out-lap, I was struggling with the rear, so I was surprised that Andre had done two such good laps. Then I understood that the car was really good and I realised I just needed to warm-up the rear tyres a bit more.”

Kazuki Nakajima and Nicolas Lapierre claimed third place in the the second of the two Toyotas with an average a further tenth behind their sister car.

The second Audi, qualified by Allan McNish and Loic Duval, ended up nearly a second down on their team-mates.

McNish complained that he had been unable to “hook up the tyres”.

LMP2 honours went to the OAK Racing Morgan-Nissan driven by Bertrand Baguette and Martin Plowman, who were a tenth clear of the G-Drive/Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan 03 shared by Mike Conway and John Martin.

Aston Martin Racing claimed both GTE classes: Frederic Makowiecki and Stefan Mucke took the Pro pole and Bruno Senna and Christoffer Nygaard the top spot in the Am division.

Pos  Cl     Drivers                         Team/Car                Time       Cl Gap
 1.  P1     Lotterer/Treluyer/Fassler       Audi                    1m26.577s
 2.  P1     Davidson/Buemi/Sarrazin         Toyota                  1m26.755s  +0.178s
 3.  P1     Wurz/Lapierre/Nakajima          Toyota                  1m26.860s  +0.283s
 4.  P1     Kristensen/Duval/McNish         Audi                    1m27.425s  +0.848s
 5.  P1     Belicchi/Beche                  Rebellion Lola-Toyota   1m29.250s  +2.673s
 6.  P2     Baguette/Gonzalez/Plowman       OAK Morgan-Nissan       1m32.938s
 7.  P2     Rusinov/Martin/Conway           Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan  1m33.019s  +0.081s
 8.  P2     Hiranaka/Ueda/Wirdheim          Greaves Zytek-Nissan    1m33.073s  +0.135s
 9.  P2     Pla/Heinemeier Hansson/Brundle  OAK Morgan-Nissan       1m33.097s  +0.159s
10.  P2     Graves/Walker/Nakano            Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan  1m33.209s  +0.271s
11.  P2     Bradley/Koizumi/Matsuda         KCMG Morgan-Nissan      1m33.512s  +0.574s
12.  P2     Perez Companc/Minassian/Kaffer  Pecom ORECA-Nissan      1m33.525s  +0.587s
13.  P2     Weeda/Rossiter/Liuzzi           Lotus                   1m34.080s  +1.142s
14.  P2     Holzer/Kraihamer/Charouz        Lotus                   1m34.246s  +1.308s
15.  P2     Nicolet/Ihara                   OAK Morgan-Nissan       1m35.408s  +2.470s
16.  GTE P  Turner/Mucke/Makowiecki         Aston Martin            1m39.114s
17.  GTE P  Lamy/Stanaway                   Aston Martin            1m39.591s  +0.477s
18.  GTE P  Bruni/Fisichella                AF Ferrari              1m39.693s  +0.579s
19.  GTE P  Bergmeister/Pilet               Manthey Porsche         1m39.736s  +0.622s
20.  GTE P  Lieb/Lietz                      Manthey Porsche         1m39.778s  +0.664s
21.  GTE A  Nygaard/Poulsen/Senna           Aston Martin            1m40.649s
22.  GTE A  Bornhauser/Canal/Rees           Larbre Corvette         1m40.814s  +0.165s
23.  GTE A  Hall/Campbell-Walter/Adam       Aston Martin            1m40.824s  +0.175s
24.  GTE A  Ried/Roda/Ruberti               Proton Porsche          1m41.311s  +0.662s
25.  GTE A  Potolicchio/Aguas/Rigon         8Star Ferrari           1m41.369s  +0.720s
26.  GTE A  Gerber/Griffin/Cioci            AF Ferrari              1m41.529s  +0.880s
27.  GTE A  Krohn/Jonsson/Mediani           Krohn Ferrari           1m41.625s  +0.976s
28.  GTE A  Narac/Vernay/Palttala           Imsa Porsche            1m41.683s  +1.034s

Audi denies Toyota home pole, Stanaway 2nd in GTE

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