IDEC Sport’s #28 ORECA will start tomorrow’s ELMS season finale at Portimao from pole position after Paul Loup Chatin set a 1:36.153 at the death of the LMP2 Qualifying session, after trading fast times with Oliver Jarvis and Job Van Uitert throughout.
During the 15-minute shootout for the LMP2 runners Chatin, Van Uitert and Jarvis all took turns sitting atop the times, the pack shuffling with each flying lap. But in the end, Chatin’s best time was over half a second faster than everyone else, comfortably earning IDEC Sport its first pole of 2023.
Oliver Jarvis put the #22 United Autosports ORECA – which won yesterday’s race – second on the grid with a 1:36.726, and forced Van Uitert to settle for third with his 1:37.009.
Algarve Pro Racing’s #25 ORECA, which won the Overall Teams Trophy yesterday and leads the LMP2 class championship by 20 points, will start fourth after a quiet outing for James Allen.
IDEC Sport taking the point for pole means it’s ‘as you were’ in the championship standings. The #25 trio leads the championship by 20 points over the #22 crew. Panis Racing’s chances hang by a thread as it is 24 points adrift and needs to win tomorrow and hope the #25 fails to score points to take the title.
In LMP2 Pro/Am, it was a last-gasp pole for Proton Competition’s Giorgio Roda, who pipped Racing Team Turkey’s Salih Yoluc to the top spot with a late 1:47.179 while on slick tyres in tricky conditions.
Yoluc, who was on wets, and ended up second with a 1:47.316. By failing to score the point for pole, the top three in the Pro/Am Teams and Drivers championship are still separated by three points heading into the final race.
Third place went to DKR Engineering and its #3 ORECA of Dutchman Tom Van Rompuy, who was three-tenths off.
The pole sitter for the first race of the weekend, Alexander Mattschull, ended up fourth in the #19 Team Virage ORECA. Fifth place was taken by Fred Poordad, with a lap that was over three seconds off the pace, in the #20 Algarve Pro Racing ORECA.
The LMP3 session was a thriller, with Gael Julien stealing pole at the very end in the #15 RLR Msport Ligier after trading fast times with Ultimate’s Jean-Baptiste Lahaye.
Julien’s time after multiple improvements was a 1:48.519, which at the time dethroned Lahaye from the top spot. A flurry of flying laps moments later then pushed Lahaye further down the order to fourth.
Newly-crowned LMP3 champion Marcos Siebert, who gambled and took slick tyres for the greasy conditions, ended up second fastest with a 1:48.985 at the death. Adam Ali took third in the #11 Eurointernational Ligier with a 1:48.992, pushing Lahaye to fourth with his 1:49.294 in the #35 Ultimate Ligier.
Antonie Doquin completed the top five in the #31 Racing Spirit of Leman Ligier, with a 1:49.421.
In the LMGTE category Ryan Hardwick extended the #16 Proton Competition Porsche crew’s championship lead by taking pole with a 1:58.574 in the final qualifying session for GTE cars in Europe.
Hardwick’s performance means the gap at the top of the GTE championship standings to the #60 Iron Lynx Porsche (which will start last tomorrow) is now four points ahead of tomorrow’s finale.
Takeshi Kimura ended up too and a half tenths off Hardwick in the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari. Kimura was six-tenths up on the pole time on his final flyer but slotted in second after dropping time in sector three.
The second row of the grid in GTE will be occupied by the #77 Proton Competition Porsche and #55 Spirit of Race Ferrari of Duncan Cameron, who was 0.575 off the pace.
Jens Møller put the #44 GMB Motorsport Aston Martin V8 Vantage AMR GTE in fifth. The #66 Ferrari of JMW Motorsport driven by Martin Berry, ended up 1.658 off pole and sixth.
“It was really difficult, you know it was honestly a lot like the race yesterday, it really came down to tyre choice,” said Hardwick. “We started on wet tyres. but pitted straight away and were one of the first to go to inters. I was able to build some heat in the first few minutes and it just kept getting better and better. In the end it was the right call.
“It is also pretty special,” Hardwick added when asked about the significance of scoring the final GTE pole in the ELMS.
“Inside the team, we obviously talk a lot about this being the last year of the Porsche RSR and everyone in the team has poured their heart and soul into the car for many years. I just feel fortunate to be able to be here in the position to be one of the drivers in its final season competing.
“It’s a real shame that all of these GTE cars are going away because I’ve spent my whole career at this point racing GT3s. They’re great cars, I’m gonna look forward to going back to racing them next year, but these GTE cars are truly special.
“It would mean a lot to me and the team to win a championship, the very last championship that an RSR will ever win.”
The final race of the 2023 European Le Mans Series, the 4 Hours of Portimao, is set to get underway at 13:00 local time tomorrow.
