Audi has once again proven its pace at the FIA WEC, after winning pole for tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Nurburgring. The #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler was the quickest during qualifying, while the #8 sister car locked the front row for Audi with a 1-2 finish. The #8 car was driven by Lucas Di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis. For the #7 crew, this was their second pole victory of the season.
Porsche will start from the second row with the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid starting in front of the #2 sister car. Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley are piloting the #1 Porsche while Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb are in the #2 machine. The third row will be occupied by Toyota with the two TS050 Hybrids.
Despite setting an early pace in the session, Porsche ended up short of the front row by less than a second, Lotterer and Oliver Jarvis ensured the two Audis were in front by the time they handed the cars over to Fassler and Di Grassi.
The #13 Rebellion R-One topped the LMP1 privateer class while the #26 G Drive Racing Oreca 05-Nissan of Roman Rusinov and Rene Rast won the LMP2 pole, their fourth pole victory of the season.
The LMGTE qualifying started in wet conditions but the track dried up towards the end, Ford had the upper hand in PRO class with the #67 Ford GT of Harry Tincknell, setting the initial pace of the session. Olivier Pla in the #66 Ford went even faster but it was the #95 Aston Martin Vantage of Nicki Thiim that claimed pole after an incredible 2m01.712 lap. Ola qualified second while Darren Turner’s #97 Aston Martin claimed third place.
In the LMGTE-Am class things were not any different, the track conditions only allowed better times towards the end of the session when the track dried up. That said, the #88 Abu Dhabi – Proton Racing Porsche of Pat Long claimed pole in this class leading the #78 Porsche 911 RSR and the #98 Aston Martin.
For a the complete starting grid of the 6 Hours of Nurburgring 2016, visit the FIA WEC results portal here.
The FIA WEC 6 Hours of Nurburgring 2016 will kick off tomorrow at 13:00hrs.