Toyota clinches pole at Fuji; Aston Martin top in LMGTE Pro
Photo: WEC/Adrenal Media
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Toyota clinches pole at Fuji; Aston Martin top in LMGTE Pro

The headlines from qualifying at Fuji, round 4 of the WEC 2018-2019 Super Season.

No.31 DragonSpeed ORECA 07 Gibson - pole winner in LMP2
  • The No.8 Toyota Gazoo Racing LMP1 car of Fernando Alonso, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi will start from pole position for tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Fuji.

  • Alonso and Buemi initially qualified their car in second position after the No.7 Toyota TS050 HYBRID driven by Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi set the fastest combined time of 1m23.437s.

  • Lopez exceeded the pit lane speed limit during the session and his lap times were deleted meaning that they dropped to the back of the field. This elevated the No.8 car to a third pole position of the 2018 FIA WEC Super Season.

  • Starting from second position on the grid will be the No.1 Rebellion Racing R13-Gibson car driven by André Lotterer and Neel Jani in qualifying. 

  • Now in third position is the the No.3 Rebellion car of Mathias Beche, Thomas Laurent and Gustavo Menezes.

Marco Sørensen (left) and Nicki Thiim​​​​​​
  • LMGTE Pro pole goes to No.95 Aston Martin Racing Vantage of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen – first for AMR in Pro since Shanghai last season and also maiden P1 for new model 
  • Thiim sets fastest time of session on a 1m35.884s and Sørensen ensures unbeatable average of 1m36.093s
  • BMW Team MTEK complete best ever qualifying with Tom Blomqvist and Antonio Felix da Costa securing second position in No.82 M8 GTE
  • The British/Portuguese alliance combines to set an average of 1m36.275s
  • Good day for Aston Martin as they also take third with Maxime Martin and Alex Lynn setting an average of 1m36.362s
  • LMP2 pole goes to Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez for DragonSpeed
  • Anglo/Mexican pair set an average of 1m28.906 to claim first pole for American team
  • Second and third in LMP falls to Jackie Chan DC Racing as No.37 heads No.38 ORECA 07
Satoshi Hoshino from Dempsey Proton Racing
  • LMGTE Am sees second pole position of Super Season for Dempsey Proton Porsche as Matteo Cairoli and Satoshi Hoshino average 1m38.366s – the Japanese driver’s first race in the WEC
  • No.98 Aston Martin Racing car places second with Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana just 0.064s off pole
  • No.77 Dempsey Proton Porsche is third with Matt Campbell and Christian Ried qualifying
  • 6 Hours of Fuji scheduled to start at 11.00 local time tomorrow

Results from qualifying can be found HERE