Makowiecki Takes Pole, But Buncombe Runs Him Close.
Conditions couldn’t have been better as the cars took to the track for the first of the three 15-minute sessions at 9:00, with mostly-blue skies, sunshine, a slight breeze and slightly cool temperatures; and it was immediately apparent that the WRT Audis were looking to gain an early advantage as they left the pitlane first and quickly got up to speed.
Stéphane Ortelli was behind the wheel of the #1 R8 LMS Ultra and his first flier was a 2:02.915, improving to a 2:01.840 on his next lap. The Frenchman then pitted and waited to see if anyone else could challenge his time.
As Ortelli was on his first flying lap, the surviving Boutsen Ginion McLaren was leaving the track and making heavy contact with the T15 Armco. John Hartshorne climbed out unaided, but the car looked eerily like its sister-car had the previous day; its right-rear corner badly damaged and the wheel torn off.
As the session reached the halfway stage, Ortelli led PRO and overall, while the #19 Black Falcon Mercedes SLS of Oliver Morley was top PRO-AM and the #52 Sport Garage Ferrari of Lionel Comole headed GTR.
The #13 WRT Audi of Edward Sandström then went second quickest overall on 2:02.375, and was followed in third by the #40 Saintéloc Audi of Michael Ammermüller. Lucas Ordonez had moved to the head of PRO-AM in the #35 Nissan GT academy RJN GT-R and improved to 2:02.758 as the session neared its conclusion. A whole flurry of quick times in the final second, however, saw the Nissan pushed back to fifth overall as Ammermüller improved to second and then Markus Palttala took third at the flag in the #4 Marc VDS BMW.
There was then a short break as cars were handed over to the second drivers for the second session, which would also see the two-driver cars joining in for the first time.
After the usual five minute wait for outlaps to be completed, the timing screens began to display the first of the flying laps (each session would be considered as a separate session and only aggregated at the end), with both Peter Pyzera and Stephen Jelley – #35 RJN Nissan and #62 Fortec SLS respectively – making an appearance in P1.
The screens reported that the #24 Blancpain Lamborghini of Marc Hayek and the #180 Aston of Joe Osborne had collided and continued, but it didn’t seem to have affected the Barwell Aston too much as it appeared in P3 at the end of the lap and then improved to second on the next lap with a 2:01.822. The #44 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Daniele Zampieri led at this point on 2:01.538, while the #3 Marc VDS BMW of Yelmer Buurman and the #57 Vita4One 458 of Giacomo Petrobelli were also under the 2:02 barrier in third and fourth respectively.
Darren Turner had done just three laps in Q1 in the #97 AMR Vantage, finishing 20th with a 2:05, and now the TV screens were showing the car circulating very slowly in the hands of Fred Makowiecki , prompting fears that the Aston had a problem. Suddenly, though, the car burst into life as the Frenchman began a new lap, and by the end of it he was in P1 with a 2:01.140.
Laurens Vanthoor moved to second with a 2:01.555 in the #1Audi, but Fred Mako’s time was unassailable.
The two PRO-class SMP Ferraris headed the times in the early minutes of Q3, with first Alessandro Pier Guidi (#70) and then Mika Salo (#71) setting the fastest time. Before long though, the top slots were being shuffled every few seconds as Christopher Haase (#6 Phoenix Audi), René Rast (#1 WRT Audi) and then Christopher Mies (#13 WRT Audi) went top. Pier Guidi wasn’t happy, though, and soon reclaimed the spot with a 2:01.340. Matt Halliday got in amongst the Audi party when he went fourth-quickest in the #2 WRT R8.
A 2:02.824 from John Gaw in the #98 PGF-Kinfaun Aston was enough to secure pole in GTR by two-tenths from the #10 SOFREV Ferrari of Jerome Policand, but the other two classes had yet to be settled.
Stefan Mücke emulated his French team mate by appearing from nowhere in P1 in the second half of the session – 2:01.308 – but that time looked beatable.
The #34 Pro GT by Almeras Porsche of Franck Perera came close with a 2:01.525 and Peter Dumbreck got even close with a 2:01.398 in the #23 JRM Nissan, but it was another Nissan that was painting the timing screen with pretty colours – a purple first sector and green second sector from Alex Buncombe in the #35 RJN GT-R indicating that he was on a good one; the GT Academy car duly appearing in P1 with a 2:01.186.
Buncombe’s time wasn’t beaten, but nor could he improve on it in the short time remaining and he fell just 47 thousandths of a second short of taking pole from the #97 Aston.
“This is a home race for us,” said Frederic Makowiecki in the post-qualifying press conference. “I was a bit lucky as I did not have a lot of traffic. The level is high in the series. We have a good chance to have a good result at the end. We hope to do to well and hope the weather stays like this.”
“I am delighted to be second on the grid and on pole in Pro-Am,” said Alex Buncombe. “The team did a great job. Our engineer made a radical change to our set-up and the car is handling totally different to how it did in Monza and it took a while to get used to it; but (fortunately) I had one good lap at the end.”
“Congratulations to the #23 Nissan for their result, even though they thwarted our plans to get pole in all three classes,” said John Gaw, “but the car was good and the weather was great. It should be a great race.”
The cars were pushed back into the garages and subject to parc fermé conditions immediately after the session ended. The teams would now then have about four hours to ready their machines for the three-hour race, which was scheduled to begin at 14:50.
MH/MtC
