DragonSpeed Tops ELMS Qualifying at Silverstone

The no21 DragonSpeed Oreca of Ben Hanley will start at the front of the 39-car grid after the 10 minutes LMP2 session was led by the no22 United Autosports Oreca of Filipe Albuquerque.  The British driver took pole at the chequered flag to move ahead of the no22 Oreca.  Albuquerque had been unsighted on his penultimate lap by the spinning no27 IDEC Sport Oreca driven by William Cavailhes. The Portuguese driver had one more lap but also spun at Club and will start on the front row alongside Hanley.

Hanley’s time of 1m41.795 was 0.395s ahead of Albuquerque, with Paul Loup Chatin in the no28 IDEC Sport Oreca in third on 1m42.460, with Nico Lapierre in the no37 Cool Racing Oreca in 4^th 0.1 seconds behind Chatin.

Yann Ehrlacher took the LMP3 pole after a titanic battle between several contenders for the top spot on the class grid in the no19 M Racing Norma. The French driver posted a mighty 1m53.468 on his penultimate flying lap to beat the rest of the field by 0.262 seconds.  However, it was extremely close with the top five cars split by less than four tenths of a second. The second placed car was the no17 Ultimate Norma M30-Nissan of Matthieu Lahaye, with the no10 Oregon Team Norma third fastest, Damiano Fioravanti finishing the ten minute qualifying session just 0.014s behind Lahaye.

Thomas Preining dominated the LMGTE qualifying session in the no88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR, the Austrian posting a 1m55.322 lap at the chequered flag, 0.856 seconds ahead of the nearest rival, the no60 Kessel Racing Ferrari F488 GTE EVO of Giacomo Piccini.  The no55 Spirit of Race Ferrari of Matt Griffin will start this afternoon’s 4 Hours of Silverstone from the second row of the LMGTE grid, the Irish driver posting a 1m56.335 lap.

The 4 Hours of Silverstone will begin later today at 14h30 BST.

CLICK HERE for all the results of the 4 Hours of Silverstone.