The No.1 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley narrowly beat Toyota to pole position for the penultimate round of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship in China.
Hartley went quickest on the first run but a track limits violation meant he lost his time. Webber put in a 1m44.618, before Hartley returned to the car and put in a 1m44.307 (the fastest time of the session).
This gave the No.1 LMP1 car, which they share with Timo Bernhard, an average of 1m44.462, beating the No.5 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima by just 0.060 seconds.
The No.8 Audi of Oliver Jarvis, who also got a second run, and Loic Duval was third in qualifying, a further one and a half tenths behind the leading Porsche.
In Audi’s penultimate WEC race, the No.7 car of Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler qualified fifth, just behind the No.6 Toyota of Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin.
Marc Lieb also lost his first time in the No.2 Porsche and had to go again, with him and Neel Jani’s average working out only good enough for sixth.
In LMP2, Manor picked up its first pole position with Alex Lynn and Matt Rao, with an average of 1m54.225. They edged out the Signatech Alpine of Nicolas Lapierre and Gustavo Menezes.
Ford dominated in GTE Pro, with the No.67 of Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell taking their first pole with an average of 2m01.391, beating the No.66 of Stefan Mucke and Olivier Pla by just over one tenth.
Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana took the GTE Am pole for the fifth time, with their Aston Martin putting in a 2m04.997 average at the Shanghai International Circuit.
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