Rebellion scores maiden LMP1 WEC pole in Shanghai

Rebellion Racing scooped its first-ever LMP1 pole position in qualifying for the 4 Hours of Shanghai on Saturday as Toyota struggled to fourth and fifth place on the grid.

The FIA World Endurance Championship's handicap system pegged both Toyota cars back after back-to-back wins at Silverstone and Fuji, paving the way for Rebellion’s #1 R13 Gibson to grab pole at the Shanghai International Circuit.

Bruno Senna and Gustavo Menezes teamed up to take pole by 1.2 seconds with an average of 1m45.892s, beating Team LNT’s pair of Ginetta G60-LT-P1-AER cars into second and third.

This left Toyota to ail to fourth and fifth on the grid. Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi were 1.3 seconds off the pole time, taking P4 in the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid, while Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima were a further nine-tenths down in fifth.

It marked the first WEC race since the 6 Hours of Bahrain in November 2017 that Toyota has not scored LMP1 pole.

Nakajima and Hartley only finished half a second clear of LMP2 pole-sitter Cool Racing. Nico Lapierre and Antonin Borga grabbed top spot in class with an average of 1m48.649s, finishing one-tenth clear of Jackie Chan DC Racing’s #37 Oreca 07 Gibson.

GTE-Pro championship leaders Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre scored their first pole of the year in the #92 Porsche 911 RSR, pipping Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim to pole in the #95 Aston Martin Vantage AMR by just 0.018 seconds.

Porsche also scored pole in GTE-Am courtesy of Team Project 1 as Matteo Cairoli and Egidio Perfetti finished seven-tenths clear of the field in the #56 car.