WEC: Title-chasing Porsche takes Bahrain pole

Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard completed Porsche's clean sweep of pole positions in the World Endurance Championship at the Bahrain finale.

Hartley was fastest in the first group of drivers aboard the #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid with a 1m39.802s and then Bernhard bettered that with a 1m39.670s. That gave them a two-lap average of 1m39.736s, which put them more than three tenths up on teammates Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb in the second Porsche.

The point for pole position extends Hartley, Bernhard and Mark Webber's championship lead to 13 points ahead of Saturday's six-hour race.

"Normally we don't put much focus on qualifying, but we put everything into it to get that extra point," Hartley admitted.

Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer took third place for Audi with a 1m41.303s average aboard their R18 e-tron quattro, a tenth up on the sister car qualified by Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis.

The two Toyota TS040 Hybrids filled out positions five and six, with Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima eclipsing Alex Wurz and Stephane Sarrazin by three tenths.

The Signatech Alpine team followed up on its Shanghai LMP2 victory earlier this month with a class pole in Bahrain. Tom Dillmann and Paul-Loup Chatin set a 1m49.993s average in their ORECA-Nissan 03R to edge out the KCMG ORECA-Nissan 05 of Matt Howson and Nick Tandy by under a tenth.

Tandy's first flying lap briefly put the car on pole before Chatin improved on a second lap to jump back to the top spot. The championship-leading G-Drive Ligier-Nissan JSP2 was a further tenth back in third with Julien Canal and Sam Bird.

AF Corse Ferrari drivers Toni Vilander and Gianmaria Bruni took the point for pole position in the GTE Pro class. Vilander had put their 458 Italia third with a 1m58.187s before Bruni's 1m58.508s vaulted them ahead of the Aston Martin Vantage GTE of Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim and the sister car of Davide Rigon and James Calado.

Bruni and Vilander ended up with a 1m58.347s average, which was just three hundredths ahead of their teammates and a further three tenths clear of the Danish Aston Martin Racing drivers.

Championship leader Richard Lietz and teammate Michael Christensen ended up seventh and last aboard their Manthey Porsche 911 RSR, which was not given a new set of tires between runs.

GTE Am qualifying honors were taken for the fifth time this season by the Aston Martin of Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana.

The session had to be red flagged after less than two minutes when the lighting system at the Sakhir circuit briefly failed.

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Originally on Autosport.com