Porsche take Nurburgring pole
Porsche take Nurburgring pole
Porsche has dominated qualifying to put the two 919 Hybrid LMP1 racers on front row for tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Nürburgring.
Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb shared the qualifying driving duties to register a best two lap average of 1m36.473s in the No.18 Porsche 919 Hybrid. This topped the second Porsche 919 Hybrid entry, driven by Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard, by just 0.069s.
Dumas started and finished the qualifying session, setting the fastest outright lap of qualifying with a scorching 1m36.192s. It sealed the second consecutive pole position for the No.18 Porsche 919 Hybrid and ensured that Team Porsche keep its 100% pole record so far in 2015.
“It was a great qualifying. Marc did a terrific job, but it was a hard battle with our sister car,” Dumas said.
“I had traffic on my first lap, so I had to do another one, which then luckily was enough. I think all six Porsche drivers are very close together here, the gap is only a few tenths of a second, so the race will be intense.”
Audi Sport Team Joest start the race from the second row as the No.8 Audi R18 etron quattro driven by Oliver Jarvis and Lucas Di Grassi lapped at a best average of 1m37.476s. This was just over 0.3s faster than the No.7 Audi R18 etron quattro driven by Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer.
The pair of Toyota TS040 LMP1 cars will start the race from fifth and sixth, with the No.1 TS040 ahead of the No.2 sister car. Toyota Racing, which is based less than an hour away in Cologne at the Toyota Motorsport GmbH headquarters, will be aiming for its first podium position since Silverstone tomorrow afternoon.
Rebellion Racing led the way as LMP1 privateers with the No 12 Rebellion R-One AER beating the No 13 example by just under half a second.
Porsche’s Le Mans winner Nick Tandy starred in LMP2 to grab pole with Matt Howson aboard the No.47 KCMG ORECA 05-Nissan.
Tandy has been on a hot streak in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship – taking three wins in a row with Patrick Pilet.
Ferrari dominated the GTE classes with pole position in both the PRO and AM classes.
Reigning World GTE Champions Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander took their first pole of 2015 in the no51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 with an average time of 1m54.275, just 0.055s ahead of the no71 AF Corse 458 of Davide Rigon and James Calado.
In LMGTE Am it was the Ferrari 458 of 24 Hours of Le Mans winners SMP Racing, with Viktor Shaytar and Aleksey Basov claiming pole 0.5 seconds ahead of the no98 of Silverstone and Spa race winners Paul Dalla Lana and Pedro Lamy in the no98 Aston Martin Vantage.
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