The no18 Porsche 919 hybrid with a 3m21.164 but the time was disallowed when the car cut the final chicane to avoid a collision with a slower GTE competitor.

The 4-hour session was interrupted by two red flags and a couple of rain showers.  The first red flag period was due to the no47 KCMG Oreca stopped at the Forza Chicane, which was removed and the session resumed after just an 8-minute delay.  The second red flag was caused when Mark Patterson’s no48 Murphy Prototypes Oreca hit the barriers at the Porsche Curves.  Patterson was OK but the barriers took 40 minutes to repair before the green flags flew to resume the session.

At the chequered flag the no8 Audi R18 of Loic Duval was second quickest with a 3m21.950, 0.588s slower than the lead Porsche and 0.109s faster than the next best lap by the no18 Porsche set by Neel Jani.

The best LMP2 time was set by the no47 KCMG Oreca 05 of Richard Bradley which, despite the earlier problem which caused the first red flag, the Hong Kong team were able to post a 3m39.897 lap, 1.4 seconds ahead of the no34 Oak Racing Ligier of Laurens Vanthoor and 1.8 seconds ahead of the second Oreca 05 of Ludovic Badey, run by the Thiriet by TDS Racing team.  The lead Oreca and the Oak Ligier were split by the three Nissan LMP1s, with the no21 GT-R LM NISMO setting a 3m40.332 lap, nearly 19 seconds behind the no 17 Porsche at the head of the timesheets.

LMGTE Pro was led by the no99 Aston Martin Racing Vantage with Richie Stanaway setting a 3m58.106 lap, 0.1644 ahead of the no64 Chevrolet Corvette of Tommy Milner and 2.553s ahead of the no97 Aston Martin of Darren Turner.

Aston Martin were also at the top of the LMGTE Am timings with the championship leading no98 Vantage V8 of Pedro Lamy setting a 3m58.783, 2.8 seconds ahead of the no77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche of Pat Long and 3.2 ahead of the no88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche 911 of Klaus Bachler.

The first two hour qualifying session will begin at 22h00 this evening.