With a huge 26-car field and a championship still to be decided, the LMP3 qualifying session was eagerly anticipated and it delivered. Initially, new Mulhner Motorsport signing Charles Crews made all the running but gradually COOL Racing’s Antoine Doquin took over at the top of the timing sheets with a scorching 1:37.879, over half a second clear of the competition.
The fight for pole-position was interrupted by a red flag to retrieve Horst Felbermayr’s stricken RLR MSport Ligier air the Austrian racer, in his first LMP3 outing, mistakenly activated the fire bottle in trying to power cycle his stalled car, and with only four minutes on the clock, drivers would have two timed laps left at best at the resumption of the session.
There was naturally a mad dash for track position as the all clear was given but one car that did not go out was the COOL Racing Ligier of Doquin, seemingly confident his time would stand.
And it would prove to be so. Second would go to Thorsten Kratz in the WTM powered by Phoenix Duqueine while Crews qualified third.
Of the championship contenders Alexander Mattschull, currently second in the title-race, faired best for Rinaldi Racing by posting the fifth time. This was three spots ahead of Tony Wells in the Nielsen Racing Ligier while Maurice Smith qualified the second COOL racing Ligier in 16th, the current number three in the championship giving himself and teammate Matt Bell a lot of work to do in Sunday’s championship finale.
The GT3 session looked set to be a showdown between the two Iron Lynx Ferrari’s and the PZ Oberer Zurichsee by TFT Porsche but it quickly became apparent that Gabriele Lancieri had the legs of the competition. On a track that lost temperature all through the late-afternoon session, Lancieri was the quickest out of box and held that position all throughout qualifying.
A late attack by Nikki Leutwiler in the Porsche ensured the gap between the two cars came down gradually with just under three tenths of a second separating the drivers at the end of the session. Manuela Gosstner was third in the second Iron Lynx Ferrari, albeit just over two seconds down on the battling Lancieri and Leutwiler.
The team’s championship may have already been sewn up by Iron Lynx but the driver’s championship is still wide open with Leutwiler battling Lancieri’s teammate Paolo Ruberti for the crown on Sunday morning.
