The Toyota brigade continued its charge with #8 taking pole for FIA World Endurance Championship’s (WEC) 6 Hours of Fuji ahead of sister car, #7.
The #8 trio of Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima set a combined time of 1m25.013s to take WEC 6 Hours of Fuji pole from #7 trio of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez (1m25.803s) in the LMP1 class.
Track limits infringement set Kobayashi behind after the Japanese’s initial quick time was deleted. The privateer best was the lone #1 Rebellion Racing Gibson of Gustavo Menezes, Norman Nato and Bruno Senna (1m26.163s), more than a second behind.
The #5 Team LNT Ginetta of Ben Hanley, Egor Orudzhev and Luca Ghiotto (1m26.820s) slotted in fourth as a spin for #6 crew of Charlie Robertson, Guy Smith and Michael Simpson, meant that they couldn’t set a time. The session was red flagged for it.
The WEC LMP2 class was headed by #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca of Ho-Pin Tung, Gabriel Aubry and Will Stevens (1m29.302s) as the #22 United Autosports Oreca of Filipe Albuquerque, Phil Hanson and Oliver Jarvis (1m29.787s) jumped to second.
They were behind before the red flag but they had an extra run which helped them to be second ahead of the #38 Jota Sport Oreca of Anthony Davidson, Roberto Gonzalez and Antonio Felix da Costa (1m29.792s).
Behind, the eight runners in the LMP2 class was rounded out by the #33 High Class Racing Oreca in fourth from #42 Cool Racing Oreca, #36 Signatech Alpine, #29 Racing Team Nederland and #47 Cetillar Racing Dallara.
LMGTE Pro and LMTGE Am
The LMGTE Pro fight saw #91 Porsche Team of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz (1m37.356s) take WEC pole in the dying moments of the qualifying session as they beat #51 AF Corse Ferrari of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi (1m37.397s).
The #96 Aston Martin Racing crew of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen (1m37.466s) made it three manufacturers in the Top 3, as their sister cars rounded out the Top 6 with #71 Ferrari in fourth ahead of #97 Aston Martin and #92 Porsche.
The LMGTE Am class had #57 Project 1 Porsche crew of Felipe Fraga, Ben Keating and Jeroen Bleekemolen (1m38.733s) take WEC pole after Keating’s late improvement. The #90 TF Sport Aston Martin ended up second with #83 AF Corse Ferrari in third.
UPDATE: Project lost their pole after their lap times were deleted as their quick door release system was not in compliance with the homologation form and that the fixing screw of the door was missing. It put TF Sport on pole from AF Corse.
Check out the full results, here.
Recap of 2019/20 WEC season’s opening 4 Hours of Silverstone round