Porsche has successfully locked the front row for round 2 of the 2016 FIA WEC championship, the 6 Hours of Spa which kicks off tomorrow. The 25-minute qualifying session saw Porsche dominate from start to finish, with Toyota rounding the top 3 after a tough battle with Audi.
The #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley flashed across the finish line first leading the #2 sister car of Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani by 0.7 seconds. Toyota beat Audi to the final spot on the LMP1 podium by claiming third in the #6 Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Stéphane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi.
Toyota was fastest in the second free practice after setting the top two quickest times in the session, Porsche topped the timesheet during FP1 and FP3.
Starting from the second row next to the #6 Toyota will be Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis in the #8 Audi R18 e-tron quattro – they qualified fourth overall. The #5 Toyota of Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima finished fifth overall leading the #7 Audi R18 of Marcel Fassler, André Lotterer and Benoît Treluyer.
Dominik Kraihamer and Alexandre Imperatori set the fastest time in the LMP1 privateer category with the #13 Rebellion R-One leading the #12 sister car. Elsewhere, the #26 Oreca-05 Nissan of Roman Rusinov, Nathanaël Berthon and René Rast was the quickest among LMP2 entries.
[Photos by Marcel Langer]
Ferrari dominated the LMGTE-Pro class with two AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTEs. The #71 car of Davide Rigon and Sam Bird crossed the finish line first leading the #51 sister car of James Calado and Gianmaria Bruni. This was the second consecutive pole for Bird and Rigon who scored their first pole win in the new Ferrari 488 GTE at the 6 Hours of Silverstone season opener. Third place in this class went to the #97 Aston Martin Vantage V8 of Fernando Rees and Richie Stanaway.
The LMGTE-Am class podium was evenly distributed with three different manufacturers taking the stand. First up was the #98 Aston Martin Vantage V8 of Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana which led the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Rui Aguas and Francois Perrodo. The final spot on this podium went to the #88 Porsche 911 RSR from Abu Dhabi Proton Competition.
The 6 Hours of Spa will kick off tomorrow in the afternoon at 14:30 hours.
Looks like the Battle of the Hybrids between Porsche, Toyota & Audi will be VERY interesting in this years FIA WEC!
~ Otto Raab
Yes, it will be :)