Ben Hanley, Marino Sato and Filip Ugran will start tomorrow’s ELMS 4 Hours of Barcelona from pole position, after a sterling effort from Hanley in his final flying lap during LMP2 Qualifying for United Autosports.
Driving the Anglo-American team’s #22 ORECA 07, Hanley looked on for second on the grid early in the session after his first flying lap, but managed to find four-tenths on his final tour on fresh tyres to leapfrog 2023 Barcelona pole-sitter Reshad De Gerus with a 1:28.071.
To put the time into perspective, it was over a second faster than De Gerus’ pole lap from last year, a 1:29.396. It was an improvement which was expected as the LMP2 cars this year are running at full power once again.
“Really happy with the result. It was tricky to manage the tyres. It was about trying to get the most out of the tyre on a single lap. The first lap I just missed it a little bit, but nailed it on the second,” Hanley said after the session.
De Gerus, who improved late on to a 1:28.224 will still start in a strong position, on the front row in the #28 IDEC Sport ORECA.
2023 champion Alex Lynn’s last-gasp time put Algarve Pro Racing’s #25 ORECA third, ahead of the two COOL Racing examples, the #47 ahead of the #37.
Giorgio Roda meanwhile was the star of the show in LMP2 Pro/Am, putting the #77 Proton ORECA on class pole with a 1:30.816 time, half a second up on Tony Wells who pushed hard in Team Virage’s #19 ORECA to secure a front row grid spot for his first race back in an LMP2 car.
“It was a really good lap. Last year in Portimao we took pole so to start the year with a pole means we are going in the right direction. We worked hard in the Prologue, always improving,” a jubilant Roda said.
Nielsen Racing ended up third, with John Falb setting a 1:31.497 lap at the death of the session to climb the order.
Further down the order the reigning champions in the #83 AF Corse ORECA will start fifth, Francois Perrodo unable to get within a second of the pole time.
LMP3 Qualifying was a thriller, with Manuel Espírito Santo getting the better of Gillian Henrion and Gael Julien in a three-way battle for pole driving the #17 Ligier from reigning champion COOL Racing.
His time came after the three contenders traded fast times throughout the session, a 1:34.761 to steal pole by two and a half tenths. Gillian Henrion settled for second for Team Virage, with RLR M Sport’s Gael Julien dropping to third in the closing minutes.
DKR Engineering ended up as the best of the two Duqueine teams in the session. Wyatt Brichacek, who climbed as high as third, ended up fourth ahead of the WTM by Rinaldi M30 which will line up fifth.
The first-ever LMGT3 Qualifying session in ELMS history produced an interesting result, with three manufacturers ending up in the top three and Sarah Bovy taking pole for Iron Dames.
The Belgian set a 1:41.850 in the #85 Iron Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3 after multiple improvements during the session to take pole by three-tenths over the Lamborghini of Hiroshi Hamaguchi run by Iron Lynx, which briefly held the top spot after the first flurry of times came through.
“We only drive to win, nothing else matters. We are here to win the championship, so to win here would be a good start tomorrow. We don’t want easy and like a challenge,” said a bullish Bovy after the session.
It was an impressive performance from Formula Racing to sneak a Ferrari into the top three, with Johnny Laursen steering the team’s #50 296 LMGT3 to third with a 1:42.337. The team, which has been on the back foot this week after missing the Prologue, has found speed quickly and heads into tomorrow’s race with a real chance of a strong haul of points.
The top five in the 11-car class was completed by two additional Ferraris, the #55 from Spirit of Race and #57 from Kessel Racing which was one of three cars that had an off-track excursion during the session. The other two were the Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin and Iron Lynx Lamborghini.
Just outside the top six in the session was the other LMGT3 team that has had a tricky week so far, Grid Motorsport by TF. Its Aston Martin, which was a late replacement chassis for its original Vantage that was heavily damaged in a Prologue shunt, ended up 1.1 seconds off pole after Martin Berry’s run.
The ELMS 4 Hours of Barcelona is set to get underway at 11:30 local time tomorrow.
Proton & United images courtesy of ELMS
