Red Bull Team Abt’s Nick Yelloly headed Friday morning’s Top Qualifying 2 session at the 24H Nürburgring, as the 12 cars which will fight for pole position in the afternoon were determined.
The Briton set an 8:10.485, the fastest time of the week so far, aboard the #130 Lamborghini Huracán on his final flying lap, vaulting him from below the elimination line.
In a new format for this year, a pair of 30-minute qualifying sessions were held to determine who will contest pole, with the top seven in TQ2 joining the five pre-qualified entries in this afternoon’s Top Qualifying 3 shootout for pole position.
The #130 Lamborghini comfortably qualified through TQ1, but spent the majority of TQ2 at risk of elimination due to a Code 60 which neutralised the mid-part of the session.
This was caused by an accident for Maro Engel, after the German went off on his first flying lap at Hatzenbach aboard the #80 Team Ravenol Mercedes (above).
Once the incident had been cleared, each driver only had time for one flying lap, with Yelloly doing enough to displace Max Verstappen’s #3 Mercedes-AMG from the top of the timesheets.
The #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin of Christian Krognes, in which Mattia Drudi had led TQ1, slotted into second, 0.139 seconds off Yelloly’s time.
Third went to the #911 Manthey Porsche, ahead of the pair of Pro-entered HRT Ford Mustangs, with Verstappen (above) slipping to sixth despite improving himself. After the session, the Dutchman said: “I felt comfortable in the car. We were targeting TQ3, which is not easy with the competition out there. We just managed to sneak in. It was nice, luckily it was dry, the car felt alright. Last night was possibly the worst possible conditions, but at least I got a good idea of what to expect in the race, so that was good.”
The final place in TQ3 went to Christian Engelhart’s #7 Konrad Motorsport Lamborghini, with the #26 PROsport Racing Mercedes of Adam Christodoulou missing out in eighth.
SP 9 Pro-Am pole position went to the #65 HRT Mustang of David Schumacher, with the #75 Max Kruse Racing Audi heading AT 1, and the #81 BMW M3 Touring (below) comfortably claiming SP-X pole after Jens Klingmann was the only runner in the class to progress to TQ2. The fan-favourite machine will start from 22nd on the grid tomorrow.
The fight to be among the 20 cars to progress to Top Qualifying 2 featured a dramatic shootout, as multiple cars improved after the chequered flag waved.
Both the #17 Dunlop Motorsport and #55 Dinamic GT Porsches eventually missed out, with Julien Andlauer and Loek Hartog respectively coming up short. Each of them climbed above the cutline on their final flying lap, only for others to improve and knock them back down the leaderboard.
The pair of SP 9 Pro entries will start from 27th and 28th respectively. The #69 Dörr Motorsport McLaren, meanwhile, will start from 34th on the grid. SP 9 Am pole position went to the #5 Black Falcon Team EAE Porsche of Gabriele Piana, which will start from 29th on the grid.
The last-gasp hero of TQ1 was HRT Ford’sColin Caresani, who set a 8:15.024 to vault from in the elimination zone to sixth fastest aboard the #65 Ford, and enabling Schumacher to go on to secure class pole for the defending Pro-Am winner.
Having pre-qualified for Top Qualifying 3, both the #47 KCMG Mercedes-AMG and #84 Red Bull Team Abt Lamborghini (above) elected not to run in TQ1. Kelvin van der Linde, aboard the also pre-qualified #1 ROWE Racing BMW, proved why this might have been a smart idea, with the South African having a spin at Brünnchen, but managing to avoid the barrier.
The other cars which have pre-qualified, and therefore will contest pole position later, are the #16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi and #45 Realize Kondo Racing with Rinaldi Ferrari. Top Qualifying 3 is scheduled to begin at 1:35pm local time this afternoon.
Images courtesy of Frozenspeed
