Heart stopping qualifying – 919 Hybrids to start from second and fourth

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, Mark Webber

The two Porsche 919 Hybrids will start from the first and second rows of the grid for the fifth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship in Mexico City. The current championship leaders, Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb, will start the six-hour race from second on the grid. The reigning world champions, Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber, qualified in fourth. Audi took pole position. The six-hour race at the Mexican Formula One circuit will start on Saturday at 13:30 hrs local time (20:30 CEST). After qualifying was held in warm and dry conditions, the weather forecast for the race is still uncertain.

In the WEC the average of the respective best laps of two drivers counts for the grid position. In Mexico City Jani/Lieb (car number 2, position 2, 1:25.111 minutes) and Hartley/Webber (car number 1, position 4, 1:25.400 minutes) were the qualifying drivers.

In the third free practice session, again on a dry track, Brendon Hartley topped the time sheets with a lap of 1:25.387 minutes. The sister car came fourth with Neel Jani putting in the fastest lap time of 1:25.847 minutes.

“The team did a great job overnight to improve our car,” said Mark. “Everybody did their best, but for us the session wasn’t ideal. Congratulations to Audi for a strong performance. As always for our six-hour races, pole position is only one percent of the game. It’s going to be a long race tomorrow.”

1 Comment

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  Petra

  on September 3, 2016 Reply

  Hi Mark, sounds all very interesting and a distinguished race track to win !
  All the best of luck from Germanyalong with a big hug !