WEC Fuji: Toyota's Buemi/Davidson take pole ahead of Porsche duo

The #8 Toyota of FIA World Endurance Championship points standings leaders Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson claimed their second straight pole position of the season by beating the #20 Porsche by just 0.043 seconds in a crunch qualifying session for the WEC Six Hours of Fuji.

The #8 Toyota is racing without Nicolas Lapierre in the fifth round of WEC with the Frenchman sitting out of the six hour race for personal reasons.

The four lap average of the lead Toyota was 1:26.886 around the 4.56km circuit with Anthony Davidson setting the fastest lap of the WEC qualifying session. The #20 Porsche 919 Hybrid came close with their nominated qualifying line up of Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard but eventually had to settle for second position.

Second row of the grid will also be filled by a Porsche and a Toyota with the former qualifying higher with their #14 car.

The two Audis completely dominated the first two WEC practice sessions at Fuji but were no match to their LMP1 rivals in qualifying, setting a average time that was well over a second slower than the pole time.

The #2 Audi of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler, and Benoit Treluyer will start fifth on the grid with the #1 Audi starting alongside on the third row.

In the light weight LMP1 sub-category, the #12 Rebellion racing will start from pole position despite a technical problem with their R-One bringing the session to an abrupt halt. The #13 Rebellion racing ran problem free to take eighth overall with Lotus managing a 14th place grid start with their sole LMP1 entry.

G-Drive led the way in LMP2 for the third time this season with Oak Racing trio of Alex Brundle, Keiko Ihara and Gustavo Yacaman also starting on the front row in their class.

In the GTE pro category, Aston Martin locked the front row of the grid with the #99 trio of Alex Macdowall, Darryl O’Young and Fernando Rees beating Austin winners Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke.

The British luxury car manufacturer was also the quickest in the WEC Amateur category with the #98 Aston Martin Vintage V8 taking pole position from the #81 Ferrari.

WEC SIX HOURS OF FUJI QUALIFYING LMP1 RESULTS

1) #8 Toyota 1'26.886
2) #20 Porsche 1'26.929 +0.043
3) #14 Porsche 1'27.306 +0.420
4) #7 Toyota 1'27.437 +0.551
5) #2 Audi 1'28.118+1.232
6) #1 Audi 1'28.165 +1.279
7) #12 Rebellion 1'31.751 +4.865
8) #13 Rebellion 1'32.245 +5.359
9) #9 Lotus 1'35.414 +8.528