GTE Qualifying
Richard Lietz set the fastest time in his first run. Posting a very strong 2.16.093 to go fastest in the Proton Competition Porsche ahead of a phalanx of Ferraris, led by Miguel Molina in the #88 Iron Lynx Ferrari. Matt Campbell looked set to join teammate Lietz upfront but his lap of 2:16.110 was cancelled due to a track limits infringement.
As the final minutes of qualifying passed by improvements were few and far meaning that Lietz’s time continued to stand, the Porsche proving incredibly quick in the middle sector. The Austrian would take pole by over eight-tenths of a second, an unheard-of margin, over Molina who was the only other driver the dip below the 2:17 mark. Alessio Rovera managed a 2:17.233 and finished up third ahead of Paolo Ruberti and Ross Gunn, the TF Sport Aston Martin unable to contend with the pace up front and 1.6 seconds off pole position.
Matt Campbell finished eighth after failing to improve on a normally unnecessary second lap on the Michelin rubber, the Weathertech Porsche being hit hard by the docked lap time earlier in the session.
Following his lap, Richard Lietz was obviously pleased with his lap. “It was very important for us to be able to qualify upfront and start from a good position. I am glad we did that and now we have to race hard and go for the win”, so said the fifth pole-man in five races.
LMP3 Qualifying
16 LMP3’s lined up for the 12-minute qualifying session with all eyes glued to the timing screens as the question of whether we’d see a sub 2:11 lap for the first time beckoned with DKR’s Laurens Hörr managing a 2:11.834 in the second free practice session.
The session was interrupted by a heavy off for the Racing Experience Duqueine. David Hauser losing the car coming out of Eau Rouge and up the Raidillon. Happily, the driver appeared to be ok and was able to extricate himself out of the stricken LMP3.
We are very pleased to announce that David is okay after his accident, however it is saddening to say that the car will not be ready to go for tomorrow’s race so we have retired from the event. https://t.co/IaEDEU6sLc
— Racing Experience (@racingexp) September 18, 2021
Simultaneously the MV2S Ligier parked up at the foot of the hill, Fabien Lavergne unable to reiterate the potential shown in free practice.
The clock was stopped and after the two cars were recovered and the track workers rebuilt the tyre walls at the outside of Eau Rouge, there were only eight minutes left in qualifying.
After the repairs to the barrier the remaining LMP3’s went out to duke it out and, as expected, Laurens Hörr placed the DKR car at the top of the field. His 2:11.5 is the fastest ever competitive lap for a LMP3 around Spa-Francorchamps. Second in class was Ugo de Wilde in the Inter Europol Ligier with the young Belgian clearly in his element but unable to get close to Horr’s time.
Wayne Boyd qualified the lead United Autosports Ligier in third while there was a difficult session for championship leaders COOL racing, Niklas Kruetten struggling to 13th in the topsy turvy session.
Afterwards, Laurents Hörr was justifiably happy with his performance although his immediate concern was for David Hauser. “First of all, I hope David is ok after his crash. It was a strange session because we had a long time to wait and suddenly we were sent out. There was more than enough time and I am proud of what we have done as a team and of myself because the gap to the rest of the field is massive.”
Racing Experience later confirmed that the damage to the #12 is beyond their immediate ability to repair here – the car is withdrawn from the remainder of the weekend.
LMP2 Qualifying
Like the LMP3 session earlier, the LMP2 session was halted by a massive crash in Eau Rouge. Nico Jamin imitated David Hauser and went off at the exact same spot, reporting on the radio to the team that the car had bottomed out heavily prior to the crash, seriously damaging the #32 ORECA and giving the United Autosports team a mountain to climb, the car requiring a full rebuild around a spare chassis overnight.
Oh dear, that is a big one.
So glad to see @nico_jamin walk away unscathed from this.#ELMS #4HSpa @UnitedAutosport pic.twitter.com/eM4O1e56Gs
— European Le Mans Series (@EuropeanLMS) September 18, 2021
Luckily Jamin was able to get out of the car unscathed and when the session restarted a fantastic battle between Team WRT, United Autosports and COOL Racing materialized. Championship leaders WRT were first to pounce at their home track but Louis Deletraz’s effort was quickly eclipsed by Charles Miles in the LMP2 Pro-Am class COOL Racing Oreca. The new signing’s time of 2:04.384 held up, even as reigning champion Phil Hanson in the surviving United Autosports car pushed hard on his final flying lap, coming within two-tenths of the pole position but falling short.
Pole-position was a massive bonus for Charles Miles as he intimated that he spent a few days in the hospital in the week before the event dealing with illness. It did not show during the interrupted session: “The track is very tricky with low downforce and the harder compound tyre but I was quite comfortable during testing. I had a clean lap in qualifying though and I am very happy that I was able to get my second pole position of the year, one in FIA WEC and one in ELMS and after the week I had I am happy to have a bit of a reset like this.”
