Toyota held a commanding lead over Porsche as the Shanghai round of the World Endurance Championship reached its halfway point.
Anthony Davidson led Mike Conway by 13.2 seconds after three hours, with the TS050 Hybrids firmly in the ascendancy.
Conway's team-mate Jose Maria Lopez controlled the field in the early stages, but the Argentinian fell to third when he spun following contact with the G-Drive Racing LMP2 ORECA.
Moments later, Lopez moved up to second behind Sebastien Buemi in the sister Toyota when Porsche's #1 car dropped of the lead lap with a brief sensor issue that was fixed on-track by Nick Tandy.
The Toyotas switched around at the end of the second hour when Buemi pitted, before Davidson got back ahead of the #7 car early in the third with an pass on Kobayashi at turn one.
Porsche's #2 car ran a distant third at the halfway point having struggled to match the pace of the Toyotas during the opening three hours.
As it stands, Brendon Hartley, Timo Bernhard and Earl Bamber will still wrap up the drivers' world championship with a podium finish.
In LMP2, Vaillante Rebellion staged its own one-two on three hours.
Bruno Senna's dominant opening stint built an advantage that was maintained through the second stint by silver-rated driver Julien Canal, with the team's sisiter car running tail-gunner in second.
G-Drive Racing ran third despite a first-lap spin for WEC debutant Nico Muller, while the championship-leading Jackie Chan DC Racing sat fourth.
6 Hours of Shanghai after 3 hours
While Porsche's LMP1 team played catch up in the overall race, the German manufacturer led at halfway in GTE-Pro despite losing one of its cars.
Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre had led much of the contest after Estre overtook pole-sitter Nicki Thiim at the start, but the #92 car pulled of during the third hour with engine failure.
That would have promoted the #66 Ford GT – which also got past the Aston during the opening stint – into the lead, but Olivier Pla was forced to make an extra stop when the car's door became stuck open.
Consequently, the sister Porsche driven by Fred Makowiecki was promoted to the front of the pack, while Pla recovered in second.
Andy Priaulx sat third in the sister Ford GT at the close of the third hour.
Aston Martin also lost its pole at the start in GTE-Am, but an incident for the Spirit of Race Ferrari with an LMP2 car promoted the #98 Vantage back to the front.
Discussion about this post