Kobayashi and Conway take Shanghai pole for Toyota

Toyota took pole position for the 6 Hours of Shanghai this afternoon as Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi combined to head all challengers and secure the No.7 Toyota TS050 HYBRID’s fourth top spot of the season.

The average time of 1m42.832s was enough to seal the pole after Kobayashi had set an ultimate best of 1m42.526s.

Joining the No.7 Toyota on the front row for tomorrow’s rolling start will be the No.1 Porsche 919 Hybrid which was driven by Nick Tandy and André Lotterer in qualifying. Tandy set the early pace but the session was slightly compromised when Lotterer had one of his laps deleted after violating track limits at Turn 16.

The No.8 Toyota, which is aiming to stop the No.2 Porsche crew taking the Drivers’ title this weekend, starts third as Sébastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson shared the cockpit in the qualifying session.

Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber continued their all-Kiwi qualifying attack but ultimately came unstuck as Bamber suffered a mid-session spin. This meant that the leaders of the points classification will start fourth.

In LMP2 the Vaillante Rebellion duo of Bruno Senna and Julien Canal took a first category pole of the season for the No.31 car.

Senna set the quickest overall time, but it was Canal’s lap which confirmed the pole as the Frenchman, who is aiming to become a double LMP2 champion this season, drove a faultless final sector to even eclipse Senna’s earlier benchmark.

A fine second place was taken by the G-Drive Racing car, driven by WEC newcomer Nico Muller and recently crowned ELMS champion Léo Roussel.

The Headlines from Qualifying

•    Toyota take pole position as Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway set average of 1m42.832s
•    Porsche will start from second as No.1 car qualified by Nick Tandy and Andre Lotterer is just 0.4s away from Toyota
•    No.8 Toyota third as Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson combine
•    No.2 Porsche places fourth after spin from Earl Bamber approaching traffic compromises session
•    LMP2 sees Vaillante Rebellion take pole as Bruno Senna and Julien Canal combine with an average of 
•    G-Drive Racing takes second position as Nico Mulelr and Leo Roussel just miss out on last gasp challenge for pole
•    No.13 Vaillante Rebellion Oreca-Gibson driven by Nelson Piquet Jnr and David Heinemeier-Hansson will start third

All classifications can be found HERE