Still Tight.
GT Qualifying
GTE and GTC runners had their 20 minute session first, starting at 10:20AM on another beautiful day in the mountains.
Gunnar Jeanette was the initial pace setter, despite arriving at the awning this morning with two crutches and a very pronounced limp after his recent parachuting accident. He was soon lapping consistently well inside the best GTE time of yesterday but he and Peter Kox were both reported to the stewards for not respecting the track limits so their provisional grid positions may not stick.
Ferraris were at the front for the first half of the session, Jeanette from Bertolini and Mowlem, then came Vernay, Mallegol (despite an early off at Castrol), Felbermayr. Cioci, Collard and Tandy decided to leave it late.
In GTC Ladygin kept SMP’s momentum going with a 1:30.741 (sixth overall in the combined GT ranks at the halfway point), followed by Kox in the Lamborghini, Persiani in the second (#72) SMP Ferrari, Rizzoli in the #62 AF Corse Ferrari and Millroy in the BMW.
It was the last five minutes where the important times came. Mowlem triggered them with a 1:29.629, at which point he headed Bertolini (1:29.704), Tandy (1:29.772) and Jeanette, by then on a 1:29.780.
A 1:29.391 from Tandy then saw him rise to the top and Bertolini moved second with a 1:29.513.
Mowlem and Jeanette pitted with a couple of minutes to go to end the session so couldn’t challenge those times, but they didn’t need to defend their third and fourth class slots. Vernay was fifth and pushing hard, running not so much wide as late onto the final kerb and came off it and into ‘Ollie’s hole’ (as it were) on the exit. This not inconsiderable gap in the earth’s crust was discovered by Ollie Millroy in Free Practice 2 yesterday when he did the same. “I still had 2 wheels on the track but as soon as the kerb ends there is just this massive pothole that you can’t see. It destroyed the front left wheel and caused about £10,000 of damage. They’ve filled it in with topsoil now but I don’t think it will help much…”
Indeed, the dry soil didn’t stay in the hole long. The IMSA Porsche sent the vast majority of it into the air in an explosive plume but unlike the Ecurie Ecosse mechanics, all the IMSA guys were faced with doing was re-attaching some trim to the front splitter. Vernay stayed fifth, ahead of Collard, Cioci, Mallegol and Felbermayr. 0.8 seconds covers the top seven in class.
Ladygin was also early to call it a morning from the head of GTC but things did change there. Rizolli set a 1:30.895 to pass Kox then a best of 1:30.836 to secure his third place in class. Persiani exploited his sister car’s defencelessness to take GTC pole for #72 with a 1:30.705 ahead of #69, #62, #60 and #79.
Prototype Qualifying
After a 10 minute break it was time for 20 minutes of prototype qualifying to start but it was a silent countdown that began at 10:50. There were no early takers at all for the first minute and a half as drivers sheltered from the sun under umbrellas. It was the LMPC cars of Verdonck and Ayari that were first to break the silence, the first timed laps for these two beginning with three minutes of the session already gone, so they had the track to themselves for the first and only time of the weekend.
Morand were first to bid ‘auf wiedersehen’ to their pit spot in P2, sending Mailleux out with 15 minutes remaining. Niederhauser was out too but was still warming tyres on his first properly timed lap.
Into the last ten minutes and suddenly the track was as busy as it could be with all 12 cars out on circuit. There was still enough track space for some good laptimes though.
The first time quicker than yesterday was Mailleux’s 1:24.579 for Morand, at that point edging out Hartley, Kraihamer and Niederhauser.
Hartley then went quickest for Murphy Prototypes with a 1:24.418, then 1:24.010 before calling it a morning with five minutes remaining. Turvey’s times in sectors one and two looked very threatening though, as did Panciatici’s final sector times in the Alpine.
Beche and Panciatici were squabbling over second and third place, swapping and re-swapping but that became third and fourth when, despite losing 2/10ths in the final sector, Turvey went top with a 1:23.871 with just three minutes left.
Panciatici’s pace through the final sector carried him up to second and then on his last lap he managed to link a very good middle sector and the best yet final sector to take pole with a 1:23.737. Behind Signatech’s Alpine will be Jota, Murphy, TDS, Morand, Race Performance, Boutsen Ginion (all covered by smidgen over a second) and SMP Racing were only 2/10ths further back.
LMPC changed regularly by small increments throughout. Catsburg looked like he might have done it with a 1:28.234 with four minutes to go but Verdonck put in a 1:27.631 for a step change in the lead at the end. Algarve Pro Racing Team’s Stewart Cox explained “these tyres take quite a while to come in. We used tyre warmers at the test at Paul Ricard and we thought around six laps would be all that we should put on the tyres because we understood you have to start on the tyres you qualify on. We were a bit surprised to see the other PC cars going out so early but then realised we’d have to stay out longer to get the best out of the tyres. We could see that the other cars were about three laps ahead of us and they seemed to have an advantage but every time Nicky [Catsburg] got a clear lap he went fastest so we are happy with that. Unfortunately though we only have him ten laps of fuel because we didn’t expect to need to stay out to challenge those times so he ran out of fuel at the end.”
Loup-Chatin also sneaked ahead of the Algarve Pro Racing Team as a result but Ayari’s #48 suffered the double-ignominy of being last in class and being stuck in the gravel on the last lap, bringing out a brief yellow flag. Whether or not that yellow flag was out when Panciatici passed the scene (and it must have been close either way) is a question that the Frenchman may have to answer.
PS
