The pair of Ferrari 499Ps shared honours in qualifying for the Asian Le Mans Series season-opening 4 Hours of Le Castellet, with them claiming one pole position each at Circuit Paul Ricard this evening.
Cetilar Racing’s Roberto Lacorte set a 1:51.979 to head Qualifying 1 in his #47 Ferrari, besting the #90 AF Corse 499P of his competitor Luis Perez Companc by 1.181 seconds.
In Qualifying 2, the balance then swung in Perez Companc’s favour, with the Argentinian consistently setting a marker slightly out of reach Lacorte. The #90 Ferrari peaked with a 1:50.794, ending up 0.611 seconds ahead of the Italian.
In LMP2, Giorgio Roda extended his run of consecutive Asian Le Mans Series pole positions to five in Q1, but lost out to Proton Competition’s Georgios Kolovos in Q2.
The pair spent both 15-minute sessions duelling amongst themselves, trading the top spot in Q1 with Roda eventually triumphing aboard his #22 United Autosports ORECA with a 1:53.160, with Kolovos only managing a 1:53.381 on his final attempt.
The #43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA of Torsten Kratz was third, only 0.017 seconds faster than Antti Rammo’s #30 Duqueine Team entry, with Tom van Rompuy making up the top five aboard the #3 DKR Engineering ORECA.
In Q2, Kolovos reeled off a 1:51.955 on his first push lap to establish a benchmark which would hold until the chequered flag, as Roda could only manage a 1:52.170.
Rammo and Kratz once again made up the second row of the grid, with the Estonian driver ahead on this occasion, with Jeremy Clarke fifth in the #83 AF Corse ORECA.
The 28-car strong GT3 class had its own pair of qualifying sessions, which took place before the Hypercar and LMP2 contenders took to the circuit.
In Qualifying 1, Steve Jans improved on his final flying lap of the session to vault onto Race 1 pole position aboard the #9 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.
Jans set a 2:02.879, besting Garage 59’s Dustin Blattner by 0.066 seconds. Defending Drivers’ Champion Blattner ended up second in the #58 McLaren GT3 Evo, ahead of the #65 Haupt Racing Team Ford Mustang GT3 Evo of Hubert Haupt.
Fourth went to the #50 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Peter Dempsey, although the Irishman is currently under investigation for contact with the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Takeshi Kimura at Turn 12, ahead of the #46 2Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG of Charles Dawson and the #64 HRT Ford of GT3 debutant Michael Tosi.
The #88 Craft-Bamboo Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG failed to set a lap time, and brought out a Red Flag, after Ameerh Naran failed to pick up speed upon exiting the pit lane at the start of the session.
This completed a difficult Friday for Iron Lynx, after the #62 Team Qatar by Iron Lynx AMG, and #68 Car Blanche by RSL Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo, were forced to miss qualifying following their incident in Free Practice 2.
On lower fuel in Qualifying 2, Heart of Racing Team came to the fore, with Gray Newell storming to Race 2 pole position after setting a 2:01.257 on his first flying lap aboard the #26 Aston Martin.
This time placed Newell 0.895 seconds ahead of the sister #27 Aston Martin of Ian James, a gap which was subsequently filled by only three cars headed by Dempsey’s #50 Ferrari, which ended up 0.572 seconds down.
Jans had to settle for third, after losing potentially his best lap after catching traffic in the final sector, with Dawson qualifying in fourth ahead of James and Blattner.
The opening race of the 2026/27 Asian Le Mans Series season is scheduled to begin at 13:15 CEST tomorrow.
Images courtesy of Asian Le Mans Series
