Porsche starts first at Spa

Porsche #1 will start tomorrows 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps from Pole Position.

They managed to grap first starting position due to a better average between the two drivers. It was however Toyota Gazoo Racing #9 who was outright fastest, with Stephane Sarrazin behind the wheel.

We have Toyota #7 starting second, ahead of the #9, with Porsche #2 starting in 5th.

The quickest LMP1 time in 2017 is more than 2 seconds faster than 2016 – and that is even with a more restrictive aerodynamic on the cars this year.

Kamui Kobayashi in Toyota #7 got a bit of a scare when ByKolles #4 with Dominik Kraihamer behind the wheel, had a spin immediately in front of the Toyota going out of the Bus Stop chicane, but the two cars just managed to avoid each other by a few centimetres.

LM2 will have G-Drive Racing #26 on Pole Position, followed by both Alpine Signatech Matmut cars – #36 ahead of #35.

Vitaly Petrov sent his CEFC Manor TRS Racing #25 into the tire wall on his first lap, which resulted in a broken rear suspension and a very annoyed Russian. That gave a red flag on the track, in order to get the car recovered from the track.

The qualifying was at times like trip to a bingo competition, since race director Eduardo Freitas was so busy handing up penalties. Nearly no GTE cars were allowed to keep all their laptimes. Especially turn 4, 7, and 17 were the critical corners, where people couldn’t keep enough wheels on the track. It was much better on the LMP cars however.

Davide Rigon secured Pole Position for AF Corse #71 in GTE Pro, by being the only car under 2:15. Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK #66 was slightly faster on average than its sister car #66, which will line up second and third. Porsche #91 was fifth with teammates #92 right behind. Aston Martin Racing finished off the GTE field with average lap times more than two seconds slower than the Pole Position. So they have to pray for miracles – which might happen, since there will be a change in weather forecast for tomorrow, with potential temperatures 7-8 degrees higher than today. So they probably will have to rely on that.

Pedro Lamy snatched Pole Position in GTE for AMR #98 on the very last lap. Twice he was punished for track limits and got his times deleted. Paul Dalla Lana was actually doing a “legal” time faster than Lamy, so there was no other choice for Lamy to go out there again and do a better job. And so he did, by posting a faster lap than anybody else in GTE Am, and thereby secured Pole Position. Dempsey-Proton Racing #77 was second fastest while Spirit of Race #86 were third fastest.

The race will start tomorrow at 14.30 CET.