Qualifying report
WEC Silverstone
Silverstone WEC: Audi stuns Porsche to lock out front row
Audi will start the first race of the new FIA WEC season with both cars on the front row, as the #7 car of Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler secured pole position at a damp Silverstone.
Jamie Klein
Edited: Apr 19, 2016, 11:23 AM
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On a drying track, a stunning laptime of 1m53.705s from Lotterer in the first part of the session catapulted the #7 R18 e-tron quattro - which had struggled for pace in comparison to Porsche during Friday practice - to the top of the timesheets.
Taking over at the halfway stage, Fassler managed to nudge down the #7 car's average to a 1m53.204s to claim an unlikely pole, just 0.104s up on the #8 machine of Loic Duval and Lucas di Grassi.
The Brazilian set the fastest time of the session, a 1m52.911s, and looked set to improve by enough to grab pole before running across the grass on his last flying lap at Club corner.
Reigning champions Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley were forced to be content with third with an average time of 1m54.150s in the #1 919 Hybrid, just under a second behind the leading Audi.
The sister #2 car of Neel Jani and Romain Dumas was close behind on a 1m54.299s, easily clear of the Toyotas, which struggled badly for pace in the tricky conditions after a promising showing in practice.
The #6 TS050 Hybrid (driven by Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin) will start fifth, one place ahead of the #5 of Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima.
Honours in the LMP1-L category went to the ByKolles Racing Team, after Rebellion Racing failed to get either of its cars out with both drivers.
The #12 car of Nick Heidfeld and Nelson Piquet Jr suffered a mid-session electronics issue, while the sister #13 car failed to start at all.
G-Drive takes LMP2 pole
In the LMP2 class, it was the reigning champion G-Drive squad that ended qualifying on top, as Rene Rast and Roman Rusinov combined to produce an average time of 2m08.479s in the #26 Oreca.
It was Pipo Derani in the ESM-run Ligier who set the best time in class, a 2m07.315s, but the team was demoted to second on an average of 2m09.632s once Chris Cumming took the wheel of the #31 car.
Third was the #43 RGR Sport by Morand (Filipe Albuquerque/Ricardo Gonzalez), ahead of the #27 and #37 BR01 machines and the #45 Manor (Matt Rao/Richard Bradley), which completed the top six.
Ferrari on top in GTE Pro
As expected, the two AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTEs proved the cars to beat in the GTE Pro class, the #71 machine of Davide Rigon and Sam Bird topping the times with a combined 2m12.440s.
The #51 of James Calado had been faster in the opening runs, but teammate Gianmaria Bruni failed to complete a lap in the second segment, relegating the duo to the back of the grid.
That allowed the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche (Richard Lietz/Michael Christiansen) to grab second in class, albeit 1.4s down on the #71, with the two Ford GTs taking third and fourth places, the #66 of Stefan Mucke and Olivier Pla ahead.
In GTE-Am, it was the #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche of Klaus Bachler and Khaled Al-Qubaisi that set the pace, some two seconds ahead of the #78 KCMG Porsche.
Qualifying results:
PosDriverTeamCarTime 1 
Andre Lotterer
Benoit Tréluyer
Marcel Fassler Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16 1:53.204 2 Loic Duval
Oliver Jarvis
Lucas di Grassi Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16 1:53.308 3 
Mark Webber
Brendon Hartley
Timo Bernhard Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid '16 1:54.150 4 Marc Lieb
Romain Dumas
Neel Jani Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid '16 1:54.266 5 
Kamui Kobayashi
Mike Conway
Stéphane Sarrazin Toyota Racing Toyota TS050 HYBRID 1:58.200 6 Anthony Davidson
Kazuki Nakajima
Sébastien Buemi Toyota Racing Toyota TS050 HYBRID 2:00.109 7 James Rossiter
Oliver Webb
Simon Trummer ByKOLLES Racing Team CLM P1/01 2:08.332 8 
Roman Rusinov
René Rast
Nathanael Berthon G-Drive Racing ORECA 05 2:08.479 9 Ryan Dalziel
Pipo Derani
Chris Cumming Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier JS P2 2:09.632 10 
Ricardo Gonzalez
Filipe Albuquerque
Bruno Senna RGR Sport by Morand Ligier JS P2 2:10.295 11 Nicolas Minassian
Maurizio Mediani SMP Racing BR Engineering BR01 2:10.627 12 Vitaly Petrov
Kirill Ladygin
Viktor Shaytar SMP Racing BR Engineering BR01 2:11.023 13 
Roberto Merhi
Matt Rao
Richard Bradley Manor ORECA 05 2:11.893 14 Nicolas Lapierre
Gustavo Menezes
Stéphane Richelmi Signatech Alpine A460 2:12.221 15 Davide Rigon
Sam Bird AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE 2:12.440 16 
Tor Graves
Will Stevens
James Jakes Manor ORECA 05 2:13.105 17 Jonny Kane
Nick Leventis
Danny Watts Strakka Racing Gibson 015S 2:13.729 18 
Richard Lietz
Michael Christensen Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR 2:13.822 19 Billy Johnson
Olivier Pla
Stefan Mücke Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford GT '16 2:14.475 20 Nelson Panciatici
Ho-Pin Tung
David Cheng Baxi DC Racing Alpine Alpine A460 2:14.863 21 
Khaled Al Qubaisi
David Heinemeier Hansson
Klaus Bachler Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR 2:15.102 22 Andy Priaulx
Marino Franchitti
Harry Tincknell Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford GT '16 2:17.367 23 Christian Ried
Joel Camathias
Wolf Henzler KCMG Porsche 911 RSR 2:17.399 24 Paolo Ruberti
Yutaka Yamagishi
Pierre Ragues Larbre Compétition Chevrolet Corvette C7 GT3 2:18.344 25 Mike Wainwright
Adam Carroll
Ben Barker Gulf Racing UK Porsche 911 RSR 2:19.084 26 Emmanuel Collard
Rui Aguas
François Perrodo AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia 2:20.131 27 Scott Sharp
Ed Brown
Johannes van Overbeek Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier JS P2 2:20.410 28 Richie Stanaway
Fernando Rees Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:21.091 29 Nicki Thiim
Marco Sorensen
Darren Turner Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:22.252 30 Pedro Lamy
Paul Dalla Lana
Mathias Lauda Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage V8 2:23.005 31 Nelson Piquet Jr.
Nick Heidfeld
Nicolas Prost Rebellion Racing Rebellion R-One 32 Gianmaria Bruni
James Calado AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE 33 Alexandre Imperatori
Matheo Tuscher
Dominik Kraihamer Rebellion Racing Rebellion R-One
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