More familiar sunny and warm conditions greeted the ELMS paddock on Sunday morning as the chief protagonists braced themselves for what promised to be a battle royal for pole.
It never really materialised. Filipe Albuquerque dominated proceedings in the JOTA Sport Gibson 015S Nissan.
Last year DSC ran a headline of ‘Easy Portuguesey’ and we may as well have dusted that headline down again for 2015 as the rapid JOTA ace blitzed the field with a 1m34.496s lap to enjoy a 1.571s advantage over the chasing pack. Even Filipe’s second quickest time was still 0.7s faster than anyone else as he perfectly maximised some ‘clean air’ on track.
“It was just a perfect lap for me,” said the works Audi LMP1 driver. “It was a little difficult for everyone with the yellow flags at stages. This is a very difficult track to overtake on so traffic management will be critical this afternoon. It will be a big battle again I am sure of that.”
Not only was it Albuquerque’s second consecutive pole but it also saw JOTA celebrate a hat-trick of top spots after Oliver Turvey started the trend in 2013.
As he did last year, Harry Tincknell will start the race for JOTA this afternoon and will be looking to make a clean break at the head of the field.
Alongside the pole sitter will be the Murphy Prototypes entered ORECA 03-Nissan. Nathaneal Berton hustled the car spectacularly to be best of the rest and give the popular Irish team a good starting platform for this afternoons four hour race.
The perceived threats to a JOTA hat-trick had been the Greaves and Thiriet by TDS entries. The latter of these effectively ruled themselves out of contention when Tristan Gommendy went off the track at Acque Minerale. The fast Frenchman had just set the fastest sector one time when he departed the track. Gommendy was the most likely to threaten Albuquerque and the excursion ensures that the new ORECA 05 will start from a lowly ninth position with much work to do. The TDS crew were hovering out a lot of stones and ironically a lot of Acque Minerale was being used to wipe the dust off the ORECA bodywork.
Jon Lancaster took the Greaves Gibson-Nissan to third place with a fine last lap of his session. The Yorkshireman struggled to find a clear lap but the Jacob Greaves led team has been working on the bigger picture of the race since Free Practice yesterday
A very impressive fourth on the starting grid is the Pegasus Racing Morgan-Nissan. Leo Roussel reminded everyone that he is a very pacey performer indeed and he was quick from the very beginning of the session.
Eurasia continued to be quietly efficient and Nico Pieter De Bruijn posted a very capable 1m36.755s lap.
The two SMP Racing BR01 entries start seventh and eighth with the No.37 car narrowly edging out the all-M No.27 machine of Mediani, Minassian and Markozov.
Ivan Bellarosa had a lurid spin at Varinate Alta, lovingly captured by the Reverend Pedro May (below).
Charlie Robertson made it two poles on the trot in his Team LNT Ginetta-Nissan. An impressive 1m42.498s saw the teenager turn more heads on his first visit to Imola. The session was not without incident however with a quick spin at the exit of Rivazza late in the session. However, it was another very assured performance from Robertson, who will share the cockpit with Chris Hoy this afternoon.
An excellent second in LMP3 was the rebuilt Lanan Racing Ginetta-Nissan. Mark Shulzhitskiy rewarded the hard work of the team throughout yesterday to claim a front row start in class.
The AT Racing Ferrari 458 Italia ruled the roost in the LMGTE class with Alessandro Pier Guidi registering a best of 1m41.747s after a stopwatch battle with Raffaele Giammaria in the ANo.51 AF Corse Ferrari.
“Yes the team did a great job today especially after we didn’t have too much set-up time yesterday with the rain,” said Pier Guidi. “The car felt good today but we have big competition from other Ferraris and also the Porsche and BMW. It will be an interesting race for sure.”
Richard Lietz put in a spectacular show in qualifying with the Proton entered Porsche 911 RSR to claim third. The Austrian survived a full 360 spin at Acque Minerale but fought back and was just s behind Giammaria.
Fourth was the BMW Marc VDS Z4 driven by Andy Priaulx. The Guernseyman looked to be eyeing the front row earlier in the session but his optimum time was ultimately spoiled by an excursion at Acque Minerale (where else) and having to back off for yellows at Variante Alta.
Just 0.8seconds covered the whole of the LMGTE grid, suggesting that the Ferrari v Porsche v BMW battle could be an epic later this afternoon.
GTC saw the No.63 AF Corse Ferrari head the times in the hands of Marco Cioci. The burly Italian set a 1m43.704s early in the session and had a 0.3s advantage over the similar Ferrari 458 Italia of Francesco Castellacci. The TDS Racing run BMW Z4 driven in the session by former Toyota F1 tester, Franck Perera was third.
Cioci suffered a similar alternator problem to the one the team encountered in qualifying and there are some nervous faces down at the AF Corse pit as race time approaches.
*Pre-race update: The Proton Porsche lost its three fastest times for abusing track limits and the the BMW Marc VDS entry has been banished to the back of the grid for a ride height infringement.
The race gets underway at 14.00 local time.
Sam Smith
