Ahead of its 28th race, the Peugeot 9X8 has claimed its first FIA WEC pole position, with Malthe Jakobsen triumphing in Hyperpole at Spa-Francorchamps this afternoon.
In the #94 Peugeot, the Dane set a 2:00.653 on his first flying lap, displacing the #35 Alpine Endurance Team A424 of Charles Milesi from the top of the timesheets by 0.078 seconds.
Will Stevens then led the pursuit of Jakobsen, aboard the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R. The Briton set a 2:00.727 to move into second, before improving further to a 2:00.696, coming up just 0.043 seconds short of Jakobsen’s pole time.
It wasn’t a perfect qualifying session for Jakobsen, however, after he spun through Raidillon on his out lap in the opening segment. This meant that he had to pit for a second set of tyres on which to set a time fast enough to progress to Hyperpole, and the #94 Peugeot will have to build its strategy around a damaged set of Michelin rubber tomorrow.
“In the moment when you have the spin, it’s like your heart just stops for a quick moment, and then when you’re rolling again, you realise that, ‘okay, now it’s time to just take a deep breath and get the focus back’,” Jakobsen said.
“Then the break in between the qualifying session and Hyperpole was very good, just to speak a bit on the radio and get the data laid over with the sister car, because Stoffel [Vandoorne] also made it into Hyperpole.
“And then you just need to clean the memories and start from scratch, go out, have a go and just enjoy the moment and drive the car to its limit.”
Alpine locked out the second row of the grid, with Milesi, who led the opening stage of qualifying, heading the #36 A424 of Jules Gounon.
Jack Aitken qualified fifth in the #38 Cadillac, ahead of Aston Martin THOR Team’s pair of Valkyries, with the #009 of Marco Sørensen heading Harry Tincknell’s #007 machine.
Eighth went to the #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P of Antonio Fuoco, with the #93 Peugeot and #15 BMW M Team WRT Hybrid V8 set to make up the fifth row of the grid tomorrow.
The first part of qualifying featured multiple surprises, with several big-hitters failing to progress to Hyperpole.
Both Toyotas were eliminated, with Kamui Kobayashi qualifying 12th, and missing out by 0.029 seconds, in the #7 TR010 Hybrid, whilst Brendon Hartley was 16th in the Imola-winning #8 Toyota.
It was a disappointing showing from Ferrari, with the #83 AF Corse entry in 13th, and the factory #51 car in 15th. The Italian marque, as was the case in Free Practice 3 this morning, elected to push one lap earlier than the competition.
Mathieu Jaminet qualified 14th in the #19 Genesis Magma Racing Genesis GMR-001, only 0.261 seconds shy of making Hyperpole, whilst Pipo Derani was 17th in the #17 Genesis.
The #009 Aston Martin nearly joined the elimination list, but Sørensen managed to improve on his final flying lap, which caused Sheldon van der Linde in the #20 BMW to miss out instead.
In LMGT3, Akkodis ASP Team claimed its second consecutive Spa pole position, as rookie Hadrien David topped Hyperpole aboard the #78 Lexus RC F LMGT3.
David, who qualified second in Imola, set a 2:16.612 on his first flying lap to best the sister #87 Lexus of Clemens Schmid by 0.356 seconds.
“I knew the car was going to be strong this weekend,” David commented.
“We prepared it quite well on the simulator, and I was lucky that Tom [Van Rompuy] made it into the top 10 in the first qualifying, so he gave me a shot for Hyperpole, which was not easy as it was quite tight in the first part of qualifying.”
Zacharie Robichon subsequently slotted into second, 0.194 seconds off David, in the #27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3, in a much-improved qualifying showing from Heart of Racing, which failed to place either car in Hyperpole at the season opener.
Third went to Ben Tuck in the #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang LMGT3 Evo, ahead of Schmid, who elected to start pushing one lap earlier than the opposition.
The #88 Ford qualified fifth, ahead of the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo which won at Spa last year. The #32 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo, #61 Iron lynx Mercedes-AMG LMGT3, #91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) LMGT3 and #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R completed the top 10.
Before Hyperpole, there was no late drama in qualifying, with none of the cars outside of the top 10 with five minutes to go managing to move above the cutline.
Alexander West came closest aboard the #58 Garage 59 McLaren LMGT3 Evo, coming up only 0.067 seconds short of eliminating David’s co-driver Tom van Rompuy.
Three of the top four in the championship failed to progress. The #92 Porsche qualified 12th, the #33 Corvette Z06 in 14th, and the Imola-winning #69 BMW down in 17th, suggesting we could have a very different look to the pecking order compared to Imola tomorrow.
The #10 McLaren, which scored pole in Italy, also missed out on Hyperpole, and will start from 15th.
The 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps will take place at 14:00 CEST tomorrow.
More to follow…
