© lendurance.co.uk - Jake Yorath
Nicolas Lapierre secured pole position for Team Oreca Matmut AIM in this afternoon’s qualifying session for the Autosport 1000 KM of Silverstone. In a rather messy LMP session the French driver set a 1:32.798, almost a full second ahead of the second placed car. Thirty-nine cars took part in the qualifying session.
The first ten minutes of LMP qualifying were an all-LMP2 affair with none of the LMP1 cars going out on the track. When the LMP1 cars finally went out, together with the #40 Quifel ASM Team Zytek, it was the RML Lola of Tommy Erdos on provisional pole, with the WR of Tristan Gommendy in second place and the #35 OAK Racing Pescarolo of Karim Ajlani in third.
Olivier Pla had a scare on his first flying lap when the Audi R10 TDI of Christijan Albers spun in front of him, but the Dutchman missed the French driver and at the end of the lap Pla still managed to take first place.
Pla’s time was soon improved by several LMP1 cars, with Meyrick setting the fastest time as his team mate Christijan Albers went off again in the Kolles Audi and ended up in the gravel trap. As Nicolas Lapierre in the Oreca 01 AIM moved into first place 1:32.798 the Lola Aston Martins tried to close in.
Championship contender Jean-Christophe Boullion then lost control of his Pescarolo Judd and came to a halt against the tyre wall, ending all hopes of a pole position. With no serious lap time set the Pescarolo will instead start from the back of the grid.
Stefan Mücke tried to close the gap to the Oreca, but the yellow flag that was still waved on the track prevented any fast lap and the gap between first and second remained at almost a second. As the checkered flag came out it was Lapierre still light-years ahead of the rest of the field. Stefan Mücke’s #007 was at 0.916s, with the #009 of Darren Turner in third place at 1.820s.
Jonny Kane managed to bring the Speedy Racing Team Sebah into second place, a second behind the Quifel Zytek. RML took a welcome third place.
Strangely enough the Strakka Racing Zytek did not take part in the qualifying session.
In the GT2 qualifying only half the field went out in the first half of the session. Tom Coronel in the Spyker C8 Laviolette GT2R was quickest, but only moments after he had gone back in his fastest time was bettered by Montanari in the #91 FBR Ferrari. After that the Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche of Richard Lietz blasted around the track setting a 1:48.638.
Eventually none of the other drivers managed to beat the Austrian’s time, which resulted in the Felbermayr-Proton team taking the point for pole position. As a result the #77 will only need to score one point more than its rivals to claim the Le Mans Series GT2 title.
In GT1 Peter Kox was the first out on the track, but despite lapping the track quite fast his time was eventually beaten by Laurent Groppi in the Saleen S7R. The gap between first and second was only 0.08s. Yann Clairay took third in the Alphand Corvette.
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