Share this article on LinkedIn Email

Toyota will start Sunday's World Endurance Championship opener at Silverstone from pole position.

The #7 Toyota TS030 HYBRID shared by Nicolas Lapierre and Alex Wurz was confirmed on pole more than an hour after qualifying finished, following problems with the timing system.

The Toyota duo were nearly two seconds clear at the top of the timesheets amid the introduction of a new qualifying procedure.

The grid is based on the aggregate time of the two best laps of two drivers in each car.

The four-lap average of Lapierre and Wurz was a 1m48.021s, which compared with 1n49.995 of the sister car, driven by Davidson and Buemi during the 20-minute session.

AUTOSPORT's 2013 World Endurance Championship season guide

The best Audi R18 e-tron quattro, which was driven by Loic Duval and Tom Kristensen, was a further 1.3 seconds down in third place.

Lapierre explained that Toyota had called the changeable conditions right: he started on intermediates before Wurz took over on slicks.

The Joest Audi team started both cars on intermediates, but each came into the pits for wets before completing a lap. They subsequently changed to slicks for the second half of the session.

Joest technical director Ralf Juttner said: "We started both cars on inters, but both drivers [Duval and Benoit Treluyer] said it was too wet, so we went to wets.

"In hindsight, we should have stayed on inters because the rain lessoned. After the first driver, we were already in the shit."

The best of the Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota B12/60s ended up fourth fastest ahead of the second Audi, in which Treluyer was joined by Andre Lotterer.

The LMP2 times were headed by the G-Drive/Delta-ADR shared by Antonio Pizzonia and James Walker, which ended up 2.5s ahead of the OAK Racing Morgan-Nissan LMP2 driven by Olivier Pla and Alex Brundle.

Walker, who is driving a prototype for the first time this weekend, said: "We went out on a cut slick, which stood up to two or three laps around here."

Aston Martin Racing dominated in the GTE rankings, filling out the top three positions on the final timesheets.

Stefan Mucke and Darren Turner ended up fastest ahead of Pedro Lamy and Bruno Senna in the second GTE Pro class Vantage GTE. Jamie Campbell-Walter and Stuart Hall were third fastest overall in GTE and quickest in the Am division.

Pos Cl. Drivers Team/Car Time Cl. gap 1. P1 Wurz/Lapierre Toyota 1m48.021s 2. P1 Davidson/Buemi/Sarrazin Toyota 1m49.995s + 1.974s 3. P1 Kristensen/Duval/Mcnish Audi 1m51.283s + 3.262s 4. P1 Prost/Jani/Heidfeld Rebellion Lola-Toyota 1m52.124s + 4.103s 5. P1 Lotterer/Treluyer/Fassler Audi 1m53.488s + 5.467s 6. P1 Belicchi/Beche/Cheng Rebellion Lola-Toyota 1m53.835s + 5.814s 7. P2 Graves/Pizzonia/Walker Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan 1m55.148s 8. P2 Pla/Heinemeier Hansson/Brundle OAK Morgan-Nissan 1m57.629s + 2.481s 9. P2 Rusinov/Martin/Conway Delta-ADR ORECA-Nissan 1m57.697s + 2.549s 10. P2 Baguette/Gonzalez/Plowmann OAK Morgan-Nissan 1m58.729s + 3.581s 11. GTE P Turner/Mucke/Senna Aston Martin 2m00.566s 12. GTE P Dalla Lana/Makowiecki/Lamy Aston Martin 2m00.772s + 0.206s 13. GTE A Goethe/Hall/Campbell-Walter Aston Martin 2m01.158s 14. GTE P Bergmeister/Pilet/Bernhard Manthey Porsche 2m01.308s + 0.742s 15. GTE P Lieb/Lietz/Dumas Manthey Porsche 2m01.452s + 0.886s 16. GTE P Bruni/Fisichella AF Ferrari 2m01.512s + 0.946s 17. GTE A Nygaard/Poulsen/Simonsen Aston Martin 2m01.544s + 0.386s 18. P2 Holzer/Kraihamer/Charouz Lotus-Praga 2m01.555s + 6.407s 19. GTE P Kobayashi/Vilander AF Ferrari 2m01.803s + 1.237s 20. P2 Weeda/Liuzzi/Bouchut Lotus-Praga 2m02.144s + 6.996s 21. GTE A Gerber/Griffin/Cioci AF Ferrari 2m02.396s + 1.238s 22. P2 Perez Companc/Minassian/Kaffer Pecom ORECA-Nissan 2m02.454s + 7.306s 23. GTE A Potolicchio/Aguas/Peter 8Star Ferrari 2m02.513s + 1.355s 24. GTE A Bornhauser/Canal/Rees Larbre Corvette 2m02.862s + 1.704s 25. P2 Imperatori/Howson/Ka To KCMG Morgan-Nissan 2m02.991s + 7.843s 26. GTE A Narac/Bourret/Vernay IMSA Porsche 2m04.176s + 3.018s 27. P2 Dyson/Marsal/Kimber-Smith Greaves Zytek-Nissan 2m04.491s + 9.343s 28. GTE A Krohn/Jonsson/Mediani Krohn Ferrari 2m05.482s + 4.324s 29. P2 Nicolet/Merlin OAK Morgan-Nissan 2m10.475s + 15.327s 30. P1 Leventis/Watts/Kane Strakka HPD