Frank Stippler claimed pole position for Phoenix Racing when he took the #4 Audi R8 LMS ultra round the combined GP/Nordschleife circuit in eight minutes 17.212 seconds in the third and final qualifying session for this year’s race.
We already knew that only 39 cars would be taking part, owing to the #35 Timbuli Racing Porsche’s late misfortune in Q2, but a wayward front left wheel saw the #69 Dörr Motorsport McLaren of Rudi Adams heading for the pits as the rest of the field lined up on the grid. The MP4-12C would eventually be allowed to join in from the pitlane, but would return to the garage without setting a time.
Jochen Krumbach had drawn first in the lottery and led off, but the first car to cross the line to begin a flying lap was the #007 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Pedro Lamy; the Portuguese having passed the #12 Porsche on the outlap.
With a clear lap ahead of him, Lamy went for it and completed his first lap in 8:21.748; but that wasn’t enough as the #1 G-Drive Audi of Marcel Fässler went quicker (8:21.297) and then the #4 Phoenix Audi went quicker still (8:19.864).
But it was Chris Mamerow who led at the ‘halfway stage’ when he took the #2 Prosperia-C.Abt Team Mamerow Audi round quicker than anybody else’s first effort. This left the top 20 order after one flying lap as 2, 4, 9, 25, 20, 1, 7, 22, 11, 50, 23, 45, 18, 19, 26, 29, 8, 10, 44 and 12.
Lamy pushed on and crossed the line again to lower the best time to 8:18.362. This was two-hundredths of a second quicker than last year’s pole and looked briefly as though it might be enough for the blue and yellow car, but that hope was dashed moments later when Stippler knocked a full second off that time to lower the target time to 8:17.212.
All eyes now switched to the TV screens to find out how Mamerow was doing in the #4 Audi – and they showed that he was clearly being held up by the #125 Rowe Racing Mercedes SLS of Marco Hartung. The slower car wouldn’t yield and we soon had the simultaneously awesome and terrifying sight of the two drivers engaged in a drag race along the Döttinger Höhe; and with two of the Audi’s wheels clearly on the grass.
To everyone’s great relief the two stayed on the track and completed the lap, but both were several seconds off the required laptime and Stippler had pole.
The Porsche challenge came from the #50 Manthey GT3 R, with the #44 Falken and #18 Manthey RSRs finishing only 22nd and 18th respectively.
In SP8, the #79 Gazoo Lexus LFA just grabbed class pole from the #76 GT Corse Ferrari; Kazuya Oshima edging Maximilian Götz by 0.296s.
The final order was 4, 7, 2, 50, 1, 9, 25, 20, 10, 29, 26, 22, 11, 23, 19, 45, 63, 3, 18, 8, 21, 44, 12, 14, 40, 123, 16, 17, 15, 79, 76, 125, 36, 27, 88, 24, 55 and 28.
All that is now left is the race, which begins at 17:00 tomorrow. The rain is expected to return at around midday and an inch of the stuff is predicted to fall during the race. This one could be interesting!
MH
