Pole for Toyota Gazoo Racing at Nürburgring – updated

Toyota Gazoo Racing took Pole Position at Nürburgring, ahead of the 6 hours race tomorrow afternoon.

Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez steered the Toyota Gazoo TS050 Hybrid #7, which managed to do two lap times that on average were faster than Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley in Porsche #2. It was, however, Andre Lotterer in Porsche #1 who did the ultimate fastest lap, but the laptime of Neel Jani was just a bit slower, so they ended 0,160 of a second from Pole. Toyota Gazoo Racing #8 was P4.

You would have to go a long way down the list, to find the sole LMP1 privateer. Bykolles Racing Team #4 only managed to do the 15th fastest lap overall, and second slowest LMP car of the whole field! Only Tockwith Motorsports #34 did a slower average than Bykolles. Their average laptime was almost 10 seconds slower than the Toyota Pole Position time. It sounded very strange when you heard the Bykolles drivers changing gears, since they were short shifting. So maybe they were not allowed to rev the car higher than a certain RPM. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow. But we are probably in for a lot of frustrated LMP2 drivers, since the Bykolles usually has the top speed, but with non matching cornering speeds.

In LMP2 we had G-Drive Racing #26 on Pole Position, before they we disqualified – read more about that here.

Jackie Chan DC Racing #38 with start from Pole Position, and continue to show the good results that we have seen from the team all season long, while Vaillante Rebellion #31 was second fastest ahead of their teammates in #13 in third.

In the GTE Pro category we have an all-Danish front row (sorry, Kevin Estre), with Estre and Michael Christensen in Porsche #92 claiming Pole Position, while Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen drove their Aston Martin Racing #95 into second. Porsche #91 was third, ahead of Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK #66 and AF Corse Ferrari #71 making it 4 different brands in top 5.

In GTE Am we had Aston Martin Racing #98 fastest ahead of Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche #77 and Spirit of Race Ferrari #54. Only the fight between #54 and Gulf Racing UK Porsche #86 was within 0,1 of a second, while there were several tenths between all other cars in this category.

The race will start Sunday afternoon at 13.00 CET.