Toyota nips Porsche for pole in Fuji

The No. 8 pole winning Toyota

Toyota Racing scored its third consecutive pole position thanks to an exciting climax to qualifying for the Six Hours of Fuji, earning a vital FIA World Endurance Championship point in the process.

Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi, in the #8 TS040 HYBRID, grabbed pole from Porsche by 0.043secs in the final moments of qualifying to extend their advantage in the Drivers' World Championship to 12 points.

Pole winners Davidson and Buemi

That point also brought the team to within 17 points of the Manufacturers' Championship lead ahead of tomorrow's race, the fifth of eight WEC races this season.

The #7 car has won this race for each of the last two seasons and will again be in the fight tomorrow. Alex Wurz and Kazuki Nakajima, who share the car with Stephane Sarrazin, earned fourth place in qualifying.

The WEC qualifying format requires two drivers from each car to set a minimum of two flying laps each. The grid is decided by the combined average of each driver's fastest two laps.

Scenic Fuji

Alex and Anthony both delayed their start of qualifying in order to find a clear track and that decision paid off as they battled for top position, with Anthony ultimately setting the fastest lap of the session on his first flying lap.

After the driver changes, qualifying was made more challenging for Kazuki and Sebastien when the red flags came out with seven minutes to go due a minor incident.

While rivals waited in the pits, both TS040 HYBRIDs stayed on track to improve position, entertaining a big crowd in the process. On his very last lap, Sebastien overturned the deficit to take TOYOTA Racing's fourth pole from five races in 2014.

Earlier in the day, the team fine-tuned its qualifying and race set-ups during the final, one-hour practice session. A trouble free session saw Anthony set the fastest lap of the session, while Stephane put the #7 in fourth.

Porsche driver Mark Webber said that he wasn't overly disappointed to miss out on pole.

"We couldn't get much more out of the car: sure we were sitting in the pits, but it wasn't though we had made any mistakes," explained the Australian, who set two laps in the 1m26s bracket on the way to a 1m26.929s average.

"We would definitely have signed up for the front row before qualifying."

Neel Jani and Marc Lieb claimed third in the second Porsche with an average nearly four tenths behind their teammates.

The two Audis ended up closely matched in fifth and sixth positions as the last of the factory LMP1 cars with averages 1.2s off the pole.

Quotes

TS040 HYBRID #8 (Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi)
Free practice 3: 1st (1min 27.033secs), 28 laps
Qualifying: 1st (1min 26.886secs average)

Anthony Davidson: "That was an amazing qualifying session, getting pole position for our home race. You never know what's going to happen in aggregate qualifying. I was confident we had the speed. My second flying lap should have been faster but there was mud on the track at turn 15 which cost a little time. Still I thought it was enough. It was but only just; we really had to work for it. Thanks to the team, including everyone at TOYOTA; without their support we wouldn't be on pole today."

Sebastien Buemi: "This is the best qualifying you can dream of because at the last minute we grabbed the pole by such a small margin. If you get pole like in Austin when it is by some distance it is great, but to fight so hard for it and succeed is just perfect. After Anthony's first laps I thought it might be relatively comfortable for us but I was wrong. We struggled a bit to warm up the tires so I had quite low grip for my first laps, then the red flag came and the tires cooled as we waited in the pit lane. But they came up to temperature and just in time for my last flying lap."

Fassler's No. 2 Audi in pits

Marcel Fassler (Audi R18 e-tron quattro #2):
"We knew beforehand that we'd be having more difficulty in qualifying here than on other tracks. The long straight is very crucial for a timed lap. But I'm confident that our performances will be better in the race. The past rounds have shown that with a well-balanced vehicle performance throughout a race, we can make up quite a bit of ground. That's why I'm positive and looking forward to the race. It'll last six hours, so a lot can happen during that time."

Andre Lotterer (Audi R18 e-tron quattro #2)
"We didn't show the best performance today in qualifying although we did everything correctly. You could see that in spite of this we didn't have the same speed as our competitors. That's due to the track characteristics that do not allow us to make full use of our car's potential. We're at a disadvantage with the smaller hybrid class. But we've got a good race car. That's going to help us for tomorrow."

Benoit Treluyer (Audi R18 e-tron quattro #2):
"It was a tough qualifying session. In free practice, we were still in front of the competition and, subsequently, in qualifying we switched positions. That was to be expected. On my stint, I didn't manage to warm up the tires. Andre (Lotterer) drove a good qualifying session and delivered decent times which ultimately put us on grid positions five."

Lucas di Grassi (Audi R18 e-tron quattro #1):
"It was a challenging qualifying session. We tried everything and have got to settle for this result. The race is very long and across the distance we can leverage our strengths in a better way. We previously showed that at Austin."

Loic Duval (Audi R18 e-tron quattro #1):
"More wasn't possible for us today. The gap between us and our sister car is extremely narrow. Our rivals are very strong here. We were aware of this beforehand. Now we're going to set up our car as best we can for the race and will thoroughly prepare our strategy. Our aim is to score a large number of points."

Tom Kristensen (Audi R18 e-tron quattro #1):
"Today it was obvious again that qualifying in the World Endurance Championship is a very tough thing to do. We need to improve in this respect so that we can be in contention for the pole position in the future. On the whole, our car worked well, especially yesterday in free practice. I'm confident that we're going to give the appropriate answer in the race."

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