The 4 Hours of Barcelona is set to take place tomorrow and the qualifying session for the seven LMP2 competitors was nothing short of dramatic. The no47 Cool Racing Oreca claimed the pole position after a 15-minute qualifying session, with Reshad de Gerus posting a 1m29.396 on his final lap. The French driver beat James Allen in the no25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca, who will start on the front row, by just 39 thousandths of a second.
LMP2 Pro/Am
Racing Team Turkey claimed the first pole position for LMP2 Pro/Am, with their bronze driver Salih Yoluc setting the best time of the session. The qualifying session was interrupted by a red flag at the halfway point when the no81 DragonSpeed Oreca stopped on track. Up until the red flag, the session had been headed by the no99 Proton Competition Oreca of former LMGTE champion Giorgio Roda. At the restart, Salih Yoluc immediately set the fastest time with a 1m31.327 lap, which the Turkish driver improved to 1m30.947, over a second ahead of the rest of the field.
The no3 DKR Engineering Oreca of Tom Van Rompuy was third fastest with a 1m33.010, two seconds behind the leading car and 0.078s ahead of the no24 Nielsen Racing Oreca.
LMP3
Cool Racing claimed their seventh pole position in a row with Marcos Siebert claiming the top spot in the LMP3 class. The Argentinian driver posted a 1m35.250 lap in the no17 Ligier-Nissan, 0.312s ahead of the no13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier driven by Wyatt Brichacek, who was 0.054s ahead of Antoine Doquin in the no31 Racing Spirit of Leman Ligier. The no12 WTM Racing by Rinaldi was the top Duqueine in fourth place.
The LMP3 session was cut short by a red flag 90-seconds before the chequered flag when the no8 Team Virage Ligier, driven by Manuel Espirito Santo, went off track and ended up stuck in the gravel.
LMGTE
JMW Motorsport claimed the championship point for pole position in qualifying for the 4 Hours of Barcelona. Martin Berry went quickest with five minutes left on the clock, his 1m41.060 going ahead of the no16 Proton Competition Porsche Hardwick. The no57 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Takeshi Kimura had set the early pace in the qualifying session and the Japanese driver was pushing hard in the closing minutes of the session. He posted a 1m41.173 lap in the final minute to start on the front row of the LMGTE grid just 0.113s behind Berry and ahead of the no16 Porsche.
Arnold Robin was fourth fastest in the no72 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage, 0.045s ahead of the no44 GMB Motorsport Aston Martin of Jens Moller, with Michael Fassbender in the no93 Proton Competition Porsche in sixth.
