Audi managed to get pole in a very difficult and exciting session that saw many teams loose their lap times due to exceeding the track limits on several turns but specially at turn 9 and 19. Two main events are taking place this weekend, one is the WeatherTec SportsCar Championship and the other is the World Endurance Championship and both have different regulations for the public to observe, in the WeatherTec, cars are allowed to go over the track limits which is more common to see at turn 19 but in the WEC track limits must be respected. In race trim cars that exceed track limits will be warned and if they continue to do it they will be sanctioned which could clearly cost the race. For qualifying, the lap times in which they exceeded the track limits were deleted.
You have to take into consideration that these were 20 minute qualifying sessions in which 2 drivers must set a time since the average lap time defines the grid position, the cars take about 1 minute 47 seconds per lap at their fastest speed in LMP1, the time is about 1 minute 55 seconds in LMP2 and in the LMGTE Pro and Am categories the times round little over the 2 minutes. Coming out of the pits and going into the pits mean about 6 minutes lost including the beginning of the session and the driver change plus the time they take to change drivers. This leaves the drivers with around 13 minutes to set their times, meaning about 2 or 3 good laps at the most. Exceeding track limits in one lap means loosing it which seriously affected the outcome of the qualifying sessions today.
In the LMGTE Pro class the fastest combination of lap times set the No. 95 Aston Martin of N. Thiim and M. Sorensen in pole with a time of 2:04.610 beating the AF Corse Ferrari No. 71 of D. Rigon and S. Bird by 0.042 seconds. Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK managed the 3rd grid position less than 2 tenths of a second from pole ith car No. 66 driven by S. Mücke and O. Pla. (Positions LMGTE Pro: 95/71/66/51/97/67/77)
In the LMGTE Am Class it was P. Dalla Lana and P. Lamy in the Aston Martin No. 98 who set the parameter with a time of 2:07.683. 2nd place went to the Porsche of the Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Team No. 88 driven by K. Al Qubaisi, D. Heinemeier Hansson and K. Estre and third was for the Porsche of KCMG No. 78 driven by C. Ried, W. Henzler and J. Camathias. (Positions LMGTE Am: 98/88/78/86/83/50)
For the second session, in LMP1-H it was really tricky as it had been for the previous one with several drivers loosing their lap times having to make an extra lap but in LMP1, even though all the teams managed to complete the minimum of one lap per driver, it was hard to post especially good times after they lost one lap. This added extra pressure when Porsche decided not to change tires in order to save a set for the race, Audi got the better hand again but this time with Fässler and Lotterer in the No. 7 car who set an average of 1:45.842. The No. 8 Audi driven by Di Grassi, Duval and Jarvis was 0.141 seconds behind followed by the No. 1 Porsche of T. Bernhard, M. Webber and B. Hartley half a second behind. An excellent effort by Toyota, specially by Kobayashi got them 4th place ahead of the second Porsche and the sister Toyota. Rebellion Racing’s No. 13 will lead the way from the Bykolles Racing Team No. 4.
LMP2 teams had a difficult time as well trying to cope with track limits, to the point that car No. 26 of G-Drive Racing could not complete the lap of Brundle after he exceeded the track on each try, this puts them last on the grid with a lot of ground to make up during the race. Pole in this class went to car No. 36 of G. Menezes, N. LaPierre and S. Richelmi fo Team Signatech Alpine with a time of 1:555.892. 2nd place went to Manor’s No. 44 of M. Rao, R. Bradley and R. Merhi and third place was for No. 43 of R. Gonzalez, F. Albuquerque and B. Senna in the RGR Sport by Morand car. (Positions LMP2: 36/44/43/42/35/37/31/27/30/26)
Teams play a lot of strategies trying to obtain the best result possible, the fight will include pit stops, tire stints, driver changes and traffic. Tire wear may be tricky due to the changes in temperature due to the time the race starts (5pm local time) which is basically the high temperature peak time and then as it cools down as the night goes through. Remember it’s 6 hours of racing and we expect hard racing among each category.
