Jota Take Pole at Red Bull Ring After Alpine Penalised

The nr38 Jota Sport Zytek of Oliver Turvey was leading the time sheets until the final lap with a 1m23.871 lap of the 4.9km Red Bull Ring track. The decision affecting the nr36 car means that the nr38 Jota Sport Zytek will start from pole position with the nr18 Murphy Prototypes Oreca Nissan alongside on the front row.

The LMPC pole was a closely fought affair between the nr47 Team Endurance Challenge car of Nico Verdonck, Championship leader Paul Loup Chatin in the nr49 Team Endurance Challenge Oreca and nr46 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca of Nicky Catsburg.  Verdonck came out on top with a 1m27.631 lap just 0.3s ahead of Chatin and 0.6 ahead of Catsburg.   However the leading cars were deemed to have exceeded the track limits and the Stewards decided to remove the three best laps for cars 47 and 49 promoting the nr46 Algarve Pro Racing FLM Oreca 09 into Pole Position. 

Britain's Nick Tandy stormed through to take the LMGTE Pole Position for Porsche in the Proton Competition Porsche 911 GT3 RSR with a lap time of 1m29.391, 0.122s ahead of Andrea Bertolini in the JMW Motorsport Ferrari.  The two RAM Racing Ferrari's will fill the second row of the GTE grid with Johnny Mowlem in the nr52 car 0.1 seconds ahead of teammate Gunnar Jeannette in the nr53 458 Italia. Jeannette was  penalised at the end of the session for exceeding the track limits and the penalty was the removal of the three best lap pushing the Ferrari down to sixth place behind the nr67 IMSA Performance Porsche and the nr75 Prospeed Competition Porsche.

After winning the GTC class on their ELMS debut at Imola, SMP Racing are in good shape in Austria with both their cars on the front row of the GTC grid.  The nr72 Ferrari 458 Italia of Luca Persiani finished 0.036s ahead of Kirill Ladygin in the race winning nr69 Ferrari.  The second row will be headed by the nr62 AF Corse Ferrari of Andrea Rizzoli, with Peter Kox alongside in the nr60 Kox Racing Lamborghini.  Class points leaders Ecurie Ecosse were 5th but just 1 second behind the leading SMP Racing Ferraris. 

CLICK HERE for the final result from qualifying

The 3 Hours of the Red Bull Ring will start at 16:30 (local).