WEC-Portimão: Top 3 Qualifying per class

Apr 15

Brendon Hartley did set the fastest lap of 6 Hours of Portimao qualifying to head another Toyota Gazoo Racing 1-2. Mirko Bortolotti in LMP2 and Ben Keating in LMGTE AM are the fastest in their respective class.

Hypercars

Outrageous domination by the two Toyota Gazoo Racing who beat their opponents by more than 1 second in the qualifying session. For the record, Brendon Hartley (Toyota GR010 Hybrid #8) beats Kamui Kobayashi (Toyota GR010 Hybrid #7) by 0.273 seconds. The two Ferraris follow more than 1.415 seconds from Hartley's best time. Porsche 963, Peugeot 9X8 and Cadillac V-Series.R are more than two seconds slower, "in a handkerchief" because less than 0.300 seconds separate the 5 Hypercars from these three manufacturers.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Portimão. Hartley with Toyota GR010 HYBRID #8 will start from pole in tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Portimao as he did set the fastest lap in qualifying session today..

Brendon Hartley (Driver, car #8): “That felt good. We put a bit more effort into qualifying this time and the car felt amazing over one lap. My lap was very clean and when I crossed the line, I knew it was good, which it had to be with Kamui so close behind. Our crew has done an amazing job so thanks to everyone. We made some good steps since first practice. It hasn’t been straightforward because we haven‘t been to this track for a while, so we had to work hard to get the set-up right and I didn’t expect to have such a gap today. Now we are focusing on the race, and I am expecting a big fight, particularly with Ferrari but Cadillac and Porsche as well. Their race pace looks strong so I am sure it will be close, but we are starting from the front.”

Source: Toyota Gazoo Racing

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Portimão. Kamui Kobayashi with Toyota GR010 HYBRID #7 was second fastest of qualifying session.

Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car #7): “We are a bit surprised by the gap to the other Hypercars because we expected qualifying to be much closer, based on the lap times in free practice. We worked a bit harder on qualifying set-up this week compared to Sebring because we wanted to get pole position and we will enjoy this feeling, but now we come back to race mode. I think my lap was quite good. I struggled a little bit because I didn’t get a lap on new tyres this morning, so my preparation wasn’t ideal, but I drove as well as I could. One-two on the grid is the best place to start so now we focus on completing the job in the race.”

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Portimão. Both Ferrari 499P will start from second row. Nicklas Nielsen with #50 did qualify faster than James Calado with #51.

Nicklas Nielsen: « It was a good qualifying session, I am happy with the lap I completed. Obviously, we would have preferred to be closer than Toyota, but we did everything we could. Anyway, we are satisfied with our 499P and are now looking forward to tomorrow’s race: it will be very long, but we will be starting from a good position. »

Source: Ferrari