James Allen made it two ELMS pole positions in a row for Algarve Pro Racing in Qualifying ahead of the 4 Hours of Algarve later today. The Australian set a blistering 1:48.674 to top the times after multiple improvements on a drying track in the #25 ORECA.
The LMP2 session was fast and frantic, with multiple contending drivers trading fast times until the very end, lapping the circuit on wet tyres after rain throughout the morning.
“He’s been quick all weekend, in the wet and dry. These guys know how to set up the car for here and that showed today, which showed with the gap we had,” said Allen’s teammate Kyffin Simpson.
The additional point for pole for the #25 crew extends their lead in the title race over the #30 Duqueine ORECA to 18 points with two races to go.
Olli Caldwell came closest to Allen with a 1:49.555 in the #43 Inter Europol ORECA, but despite multiple late flyers was unable to snatch the top spot and ended up almost nine-tenths off.
The second row of the grid will be filled by the #28 IDEC Sport and #65 Panis Racing ORECA 07 Gibsons. The title-contending #30 Duqueine ORECA ended up falling to fifth after Neel Jani’s efforts, which early in the running saw him sit in the top three.
After a downpour during LMP3 qualifying, the bronze drivers of the LMP2 Pro/Am field went out for a very wet session before the LMP2 class runners.
With the conditions extremely tricky, it produced a surprise result. Alexander Mattschull in the #19 Team Virage ORECA set the fastest lap at the very end, a 1:55.426, to a second clear of the #34 points-leading Racing Team Turkey 07 Gibson with Salih Yoluc at the wheel.
“I am really happy, the team did a great job at preparing a car that would give me confidence. Yesterday was my first time in an LMP2 car in the rain,” Mattschull explained.
Yoluc was clearly pushing his ORECA to its limits in the session to claim a fifth pole in five races for himself and the team. His efforts almost ended in disaster. He did well to correct a tank-slapper at the final corner late in the session which almost saw him veer off the circuit.
With Yoluc missing out on pole, the gap in the LMP2 Pro/Am championship to the #83 AF Corse ORECA remains at four points.
Third went to the #24 Nielsen Racing ORECA, after Giorgio Roda in the #99 Proton Competition, a with a lap that was 23 hundredths off Yoluc, was deleted, dropping him to fourth.
The #3 car of DKR Engineering example, driven by Tom Van Rompuy in the session, will start fifth.
LMP3 qualifying saw Team Virage’s #8 Ligier bag pole position. The best time was a 1:56.029 from Manuel Espirito Santo, with nine minutes remaining before heavy rain intervened and prevented any notable late improvements.
“Back-to-back poles is something incredible, and to do it here in my home country was great. The conditions were tricky, I needed to get the time done early, it was all or nothing. From one lap to the other it was completely different,” 20-year-old Espirito Santo said.
Alongside Virage on the front row will be the #12 WTM by Rinaldi Duqueine after a 1:56.255, which dropped the #17 championship-leading COOL Racing Ligier to third.
For Adrien Chila, Marcos Siebert and Alejandro Garcia, third is still a welcome outcome. The trio head into the penultimate race of the season today with a 46-point lead in the title race. A top-seven finish secures the championship.
The #11 Eurointernational Ligier will start alongside the #17 COOL Ligier on row two after Adam Ali sat on provisional pole briefly before the flurry of improvements before the rain came.
Prior to the LMP3 session, the GTE runners were first to venture out, making for difficult decisions in terms of tyre choice.
Taking pole was the #72 Aston Martin V8 Vantage AMR GTE of TF Sport after Robin Arnold set a 2:01.872 flyer. Behind him, the #50 Ferrari of Formula Racing was 0.958 seconds off the pace with Johnny Laursen at the wheel.
Third on the GTE grid went the way of the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, Duncan Cameron being 1.101 seconds off the pole time.
GMB Motorsport will start the race in fourth place with its #44 Aston Martin. Completing the top five is the #77 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Proton Competition, with Christian Reid 2.136 seconds off in wet conditions.
The #16 Proton Porsche, which leads the championship, will start sixth.
The session wasn’t without its blunders and featured a significant number of deleted lap times for track limit violations, most notably the tricky first corner and Turn 5.
There was also two red flags, the latter of which ended the session prematurely with about 30 seconds to go. The first was for an off-track excursion at Turn 1 for Duncan Cameron in the #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari, the latter after a spin into the gravel at the exit of Turn 10 for Michael Fassbender in the #93 Proton Porsche.
The #93 had all its lap times deleted for causing the second red flag and will start at the back of the grid.
Of note, cars #66 and #60 had their fastest lap times of the session deleted for going to the fast lane before the race direction’s instruction to do so before the start of the session. The #50 Formula Racing Ferrari is also under investigation.
Due to the rain shower during the LMP3 session, the overall list of times is jumbled, with most of the LMP3 cars setting similar times to the quickest ORECAs in LMP2 Pro/Am. It remains to be seen whether or not the grid later today will be split or if the race will start with a mixed field.
The 4 Hours of Algarve, the first of the two ELMS races this weekend, is set to get underway at 14:45 local time.
