The #8 Audi driven by Lucas di Grassi and Loic Duval snatched pole position for the WEC 6 Hours of Fuji by just 0.025s from the #1 Porsche of Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard, in a closely-fought battle.
Although Audi's combined time of 1m23.570s was eight-tenths slower than last year's pole time, it was enough to beat Porsche this year by the slimmest of margins, whilst the #5 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi and Kauzki Nakajima was third, just over a tenth off the pace.
It was a good day for Toyota as they locked-out the second row, with the sister car 0.042s behind in fourth ahead of the second Audi and Porsche LMP1 entries.
In the privateer battle, it was Rebellion that came out on top against ByKolles, 5.3s off the pace of the frontrunners.
The #26 G-Drive car of Alex Brundle and Roman Rusinov took the LMP2 class pole, lapping under the 1m32 mark.
The #66 Ford claimed its first WEC pole in the GTE Pro class with Stefan Mucke and Olivier Pla setting a combined time of 1m37.681s, 0.044s ahead of the sister car driven by Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx to make it a 1-2 for the American team.
Pole in GTE-Am meanwhile went to the #98 machine of Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana.
