ELMS - 4 Hours of Barcelona: Qualifying
Successfull weekend so far for Cool Racing who is getting two of the three cars on pole in LMP2 and LMP3 for the first round of the new European Le Mans Series season. Malthe Jakobsen with the #37 Cool Racing Oreca was the only driver to go below the 1:30 second barrier (1:29.811) in LMP2 Pro/Am of combined practices by posting the fastest lap of the first Free Practice session.
LMP2
The five last minutes of the thrilling qualifying session have been decisive for the top 4 of class who ended within 0.297 sec.
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. Reshad de Gerus with the #47 Cool Racing Oreca claimed pole position (1m29.396), heading the field by just 0.039 sec.
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. James Allen in the #25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca will be on the front row having set the second performance of the session.
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. Neel Jani in the #30 Duqueine Team will start from second row after setting the third fastest lap just 0.1s ahead of Phil Hanson in the #22 United Autosports USA Oreca who will also start on row 2 of Sunday’s grid at 11:30am.
Job Van Uitert with #65 Panis Racing Oreca will start from third row being fifth of the session. The #43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca (with Jonathan Aberdein) and the #28 IDEC Sport (with Paul Loup Chatin) who animated the second free practice by clinching P1 and P2 of that session are respectively sixth and seventh of the qualifying session.
Note that those seven drivers did set the fastest lap of the combined sessions of the weekend within 0.763. Their co-drivers were more than 2.390 sec. slower in the free practices.
LMP2 Pro/Am
The qualifying session in Pro/Am has the specificity of being driven by bronze drivers only.
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. Salih Yoluc with #34 Racing Team Turkey claimed the first pole position for LMP2 Pro/Am, which is the fourth fastest lap in class of the three sessions combined ahead of most of the PRO drivers in class.
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. Former LMGTE champion Giorgio Roda driving the #99 Proton Competition Oreca ended second of qualifying for 0.320 sec.
Alexandre Coigny with Cool Racing #27 was third almost two seconds slower (1.891 sec.). Note that his teammate, Malthe Jakobsen, was the only driver in class to set a lap time below the mark of 1.30 (1 :29.811) during the first free practice.
LMP3
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. Marcos Siebert in the #17 Cool Racing Ligier-Nissan claiming the top spot in the LMP3 class for the seventh time in a row ahead of Wyatt Brichacek with the #13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier driven and Antoine Doquin in the #31 Racing Spirit of Leman Ligier.
LMGTE
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. Martin Berry with #66 JMW Motorsport went quickest of LMGTE class, claiming the championship point for pole position in qualifying for the 4 Hours of Barcelona.
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. Takeshi Kimura in the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari will start from the front row after setting the second fastest lap of the session ahead of Hardwick in the #16 Proton Competition Porsche.
Arnold Robin was fourth fastest in the #72 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage, 0.045s ahead of the #44 GMB Motorsport Aston Martin of Jens Moller, with Michael Fassbender in the #93 Proton Competition Porsche in sixth.
Related News
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. ELMS - Barcelona: Prologue
📷 © Luc Warnotte at Barcelona. Louis Deletraz going for four crowns (part 1/2 interview)
