With no rain having fallen and with no hold-ups from the earlier track sessions and races, qualifying for the COTA race began on time at 13:00 with the LMGTE classes going out first for their 25 minutes. As ever, the format would see two timed laps from two drivers being averaged to produce the qualifying time for each car, and the prospects for the first session at least were for a very tight session. The weather was really quite pleasant – overcast with a stiff breeze, but dry and comfortably warm, and with the sun threatening to put in an appearance at any time.
LMGTE-Pro & LMGTE-Am
The cars were sent out with a gap of three or four seconds between them, possibly in order to give each the opportunity of a clear track, and it was the Pro #92 Porsche 911 of Richard Lietz that led the way with a first times lap of 2:05.600. Pedro Lamy was next in the #98 Aston on 2:06.380, but the #99 Aston of Fred Makowiecki went quicker on 2:05.359 and Gimmi Bruni quicker still on 2:05.189.
GTE-Am was led after eight minutes by the IMSA Porsche of Vernay 2:06.199, with the #95 Aston of Nikki Thiim second on 2:06.232. A spin from the #50 Larbre Corvette – Fernando Rees at the wheel – almost took out the Pro Aston of Gavin, but contact was avoided. Vernay lowered his average to 2:06.184. Matteo Malucelli was third in the #81 8Star Ferrari, leaving the top three covered by a tenth.
Back in Pro, Makowiecki led on 2:04.610, with Lietz second on 2:04.829 and third Kobayashi on 2:05.011. All cars in the class were within a second before the second drivers took over
Vernay improved his average by a few hundredths, while Matt Griffin went fourth in #61 with a 2:06.377. But Malucelli went top with a 2:06.061.
With 11 to go the Pro order was 99, 92, 71, 51, 91, 97 and 98; and in Am it was 81, 76, 95, 61, 88, 96, 57, 50. The second drivers were Senna, Lieb, Vilander, Fisichella, Pilet, Turner and Stanaway in Pro, and Narac, Nygaard, Cioci, Roda, Hall, Krohn, Canal and Aguas in Am.
As we waited for the second drivers to complete two laps, a message appeared on the screens that the #76 IMSA Porsche was under investigation for speeding in the pitlane.
Stanaway was pushing hard on his second flying lap and completed a 2:04.213 to give him his car an official qualifying time of 2:05.138. This was not quite as quick as Toni Vilander’s 2:05.106, but Senna was quicker still in 99 with a 2:04.958. Stanaway kept his foot in however and a 2:04.014 brought his average down to 2:04.919, four-hundredths quicker than his teammate.
Senna then put in a 2:04.3, which was enough to leapfrog 98 by three tenths. The first four were with half a second with two and a half minutes remaining. Pilet goes third with an average of 2:05.055.
In Am, Nygaard led the way in 95 with a 2:06.528 average, three tenths up on Cioci in the 61 and a further half second up on Aguas in the #81 458. Stuart Hall was two-hundredths further back, with Narac three-thousandths further back from the Aston.
Pilet then made a move and another 2:04.3 was enough to split the Astons with an average of 2:04.898, two-hundredths up on Stanaway. The flag was now out and several cars had pitted, and it was now a case of seeing if anyone could improve on their final laps. Cioci
The difference between second and third in pro was two-hundredths of a second averaged over four timed laps. The gap across the whole class was seven-tenths.
In Am, the difference between the #76 and #96 Aston – the top two in the championship standings – were separated by just three-thousandths on average after four timed laps.
The final order in Pro was 99, 91, 98, 71, 92, 97 and 51; and in Am it was 81, 95, 61, 96, 76, 88, 50 and 57. The big gainers in the second half of the session were 98 and 91, with Stanaway taking the Aston from last to third.
P1 & P2
After a short gap, the prototype contingent took to the track with blue sky much more prevalent and with the sun creating shadows.
Loic Duval was first out in the #2 Audi, just ahead of the #49 Pecom Oreca of Pierre Kaffer. The Audi driver outbraked himself at the start of his first flier, still managed to complete the lap in a 1:48.574. Sarrazin, Fässler and Heidfeld were the other P1 drivers, but the #1 Audi’s opener was a second slower.
In P2, James Walker was the quickest driver in the opening moments in the #25 Delta ADR Oreca, but Olivier Pla and Bertrand Baguette soon went quicker in the #24 and #35 OAK Morgans.
Sarrazin’s first lap was a 1:50.215, while Duval did a 1:47.801 on his second flying lap to give him an average of 1:48.187 against 1:49.275 for Fässler.
P2 saw a Morgan 1-2 – the #35 from #24 – averaging 1:56.080 and 1:56.170 respectively.
In P1, Duval improved his average to 1:47.660, against 1:50 for the Toyota and 1:53 for the Rebellion, but Sarrazin had bigger things to worry about as Jan Charouz in the #32 Lotus rear-ended the TS030 into T1; spinning the hybrid and sending the Frenchman pitwards at the end of that lap. The rear lighting rig was damaged in the incident – the Lotus being the same car that took the Toyota out in Brazil – but the team changed the rear end before sending Sébastien Buemi back out.
With ten minutes of the session gone, Fässler had improved but was still eight-tenths off Duval’s average and 1.5s up on the Toyota. In P2 we had big improvements from Walker and Kaffer, which took both drivers ahead of Pla; the top five in P2 being separated by an average of four-tenths. John Martin Led the class in the #26 G-Drive Oreca, with an average of 1:55.497. Before he pitted, though, he had brought that down to 1:54.876, leaving him seven-tenths clear of the #35.
The order at halfway was 2, 1, 8 and 12 in P1 and 26, 35, 25, 49, 24, 41, 31, 32 and 45 in P2.
The new drivers were McNish, Lotterer, Buemi and Beche in P1, while in P2 we had Minassian, Liuzzi, Conway, Plowman, Graves, Brundle, Dyson and Merlin; the Oak driver spinning the #45 OAK Morgan and hit the barrier before heading back to the pits.
McNish was the first to post a four-lap average – 1:48.498 – followed by Buemi on 1:49.987 in the Toyota. Lotterer went second with a 1:48.794.
Liuzzi posted the first P2 time in the #31 Lotus -1:56.761 – but that was soon bettered by Minassian on 1:56.999 in the Pecom Oreca, and Martin Plowman with a 1:56.289 in the #35 OAK Morgan.
McNish improved to 1:48.355 and the difference was now more than four-tenths for pole. With four minutes remaining, it was 35, 49, 24 at the head of P2, but we were still waiting to see what the Delta cars could produce.
Buemi closed the gap to the leader to 1.3s in P1, but remained third – the Rebellion’s average was 1:52.081 at this point – while Tor Graves went third in P2 in the #25. This became fourth as Conway went top in #26 on an average of 1:55.260, almost a second up on Plowman; who was himself then edged back to third by Brundle in the sister #24 with an average of 1:56.145.
Plowman reclaimed second position from Brundle by a tenth of a second with a minute left on the clock, but the P1 fight was all over by this point with all four cars in the pits. Cue celebrations in the #2 garage.
P2 was still up for grabs, however, with Brundle, Plowman and Minassian still out there and chasing Conway’s mark. There was no improvement for Quick Nic as he took the flag, and none for Plowman or Conway; but Brundle snatched second with a 1:55.961 on his final lap.
The order was thus 2, 1, 8 and 12 in P1, and 26, 24, 35, 49, 25, 31, 41, 32 and 45; the OAK ‘Art Car’ being the only car to fail to complete the session.
And that was qualifying. With no warm-up on the schedule, the next time the WEC cars would take to the track would be for the race which was scheduled to start at 11:00 (17:00 UK).
MH
