2023 FIA WEC / FocusPackMedia - Tim Hearn

#8 Toyota on Pole at Portimao

Brendan Hartley leads dominant Toyota one-two in Portimão.

Toyota takes a one-two at Portimão with the #8 car taking the pole position at the hands of Brendon Hartley, as they continue their absolute domination of the World Endurance Championship.

Brendan Hartley set a time of 1:30.444s to go P1 at Portimao, beating out the sister #7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi by +0.273.

The next car was the third-place the Nicklas Nielsen #50 Ferrari which was +1.425s off Hartley, with the #51 Ferrari of James Calado in fourth +1.923s off Hartley really showing the gap the rest of the field needs to make up in tomorrow’s race.

It was the #06 Porsche of Kevin Estre that closed out the top five with Estre setting a time of 1:32.404s which was +2.233s off of Hartley.

Peugeot is looking much stronger this weekend with the #94 Peugeot of Nico Muller sitting in sixth and only +0.113 off the #06 Porsche of Kevin Estre, showing that Peugeot is right in the mix with the rest of the field.

Meanwhile, in LMP2 they had a much more frilling session!

The #63 Prema Racing Oreca was the fastest with Mirko Bortolotti behind the wheel setting a time of 1:34.303s which was +0.001 faster than the #63 Vector Sport Oreca of Gabriel Aubry.

Then in the third position was Phillip Hanson in the #22 United Autosport car, which was itself only +0.148s off pole position.

As evidence of how close this field was Oliver Rasmussen in the #28 Jota that qualified at the back of the LMP2 field was only +1.058s off P1.

Finally, in the LMGTE AM field, the fastest AM driver alive Ben Keating took P1, with a time of 1:41.362s in the #33 Corvette Racing C8.R.

Keating was followed by the #85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR driven by Sarah Bovy who was +0.217s off Keating.

Lining up in third is the #21 AF Corsa Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Diego Alessi, who was only +0.266s off the pole time.

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