The qualifying for the second round of European Le Mans Series was run at Spa Francorchamps this afternoon.
Every category had two minutes extra time, since the laptimes on the seven-kilometre long track was over two minutes.
As always, the GTE cars came out first. The usual eight ELMS cars got company from three FIA WEC cars, that would like to have extra practice time, prior to next weekend’s FIA WEC race.
JMW Motorsport Ferrari #66 and Aston Martin Racing #98 chose to pit already after the first lap, putting other tires on the car.
It took almost five minutes into the qualifying before the first flying laps were set. Proton Competition Porsche #93 was the fastest, followed by Kessel Racing #74 and Proton Competition #77.
They were passed by Aston Martin Racing #98, which however got their time taken away due to Track Limits.
Kessel Racing Ferrari #74 had some problems with the rear wing, which the mechanics had to start changing in the middle of the qualifying. It apparently started to vibrate on the straight, since the mechanics puled the old rear wing before mounting a new one on.
Richard Lietz in Proton Competition #93 improved his time once again and put an emphasis on Pole Position for the car, that he shared with Felipe Laser and Michael Fassbender. Kessel Racing Ferrari #74 was the second fastest with David Perel (plus Michael Broniszewski and Marcos Gomes), while Iron Lynx Ferrari #60 with Andrea Piccini (as wells as Claudio Schiavoni and Sergio Pianezzola) was third.
Afterwards, it was time for the LMP3’s twelve-minute qualifying.
DKR Engineering #3, and United Autosports #2 wanted to be the top of the table. It quickly developed into a duel between the two, where one drove a couple of tenths faster than the other, before the other improved their time. And it continued for the rest of the quali.
Wayne Boyd in United Autosports #2, however, set a phenomenal time, that was nearly a second faster than everyone else. Thus, he and his teammates, Tom Gamble and Rob Wheldon, would start the race from Pole Position, ahead of DKR Engineering #4 with Laurents Hörr (plus Francois Kirmann and Wolfgang Triller) would from second place, followed by Realteam Racing #8 with Esteban Garcia and David Droux in P3.
Last but not least, it was time for the sixteen LMP2 cars to do their qualifying.
Mikkel Jensen did well in his first attempt, setting the second-fastest time, only beaten by United Autosports #22.
Both Inter Europol Competition #34 and Cool Racing #37 waited to send their drivers out, so they would only have one attempt, unlike the other teams who typically use two sets of tires.
A lot of teams interrupted their fast lap and pitted. Except for United Autosports #32 and JOTA #38, and they jumped up to second and fifth positions respectively.
But nobody could touch Filipe Albuquerque in United Autosports #22, that he shares with Phil Hanson. He took the Pole with over half a second to Job van Uitert (plus Alex Brundle and Will Owen) in UA #32, while Mikkel Jensen was beaten by 0,004, and had to start from the third position in G-Drive Racing #26, which he shares with Roman Rusinov this weekend.
Now the teams have the rest of the day to prepare the cars for the race tomorrow, that will start at eleven o’clock local time. You can watch it on this link.