LMP1 qualifying FIA World Endurance Championship, round 5, Mexico City (MX)
Both Porsche 919 Hybrids will start from the front row of the grid in Sunday’s six-hour race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. The championship leading Le Mans winners, Earl Bamber (NZ), Timo Bernhard (DE) and Brendon Hartley (NZ) took pole position on a dry track. Grid position two for the fifth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) went to the crew of the reigning world champion Neel Jani (CH), André Lotterer (DE) and Nick Tandy (GB) in the sister car.
It is the 17th pole position for the Porsche 919 Hybrid since its debut in 2014 and the second this year after Jani and Lotterer had been fastest in the Spa qualifying. The last front row lock-out for Porsche dates back to the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hour race.
In the WEC, the average of the two fastest laps of two drivers counts for the qualifying result. Bernhard/Hartley achieved an average time of 1:24.562 minutes for car number 2. Lotterer/Tandy in car number 1 managed a time of 1:24.710 min. Hartley set the outright fastest qualifying lap of 1:24.459 minutes which topped last year’s best time of 1:24.763 minutes set by Lotterer in an Audi.
In the second free practice this morning, the two Porsches topped the time sheets before finishing second and fourth in FP3 which was held shortly after noon. Both sessions were held on a dry track. It was also Hartley who had set the overall best lap of all practice sessions, a 1:25.007 minutes this morning.
