TDS by Thiriet Racing Oreca Takes Home Pole in Le Castellet

Under blue skies and warm temperatures the Swiss driver posted a 1m47.033 lap around the 5.8km circuit, 0.481s ahead of his nearest rival, who was Nicolas Lapierre in the no21 Dragonspeed Oreca-Nissan. The third fastest car was the no41 Greaves Motorsport Ligier-Nissan was 1.3 seconds behind the lead car, with Nathanael Berthon posting a 1m48.420 lap, 0.176s faster than the no32 SMP Racing BR01 of Stefano Coletti.

The championship leading no38 G Drive Racing Gibson Nissan with Giedo Van Der Garde at the wheel could only manage to post a 1m49.207 lap in the 10 minute session, which was only good enough for 9^th place on the grid for tomorrow’s race.

In LMP3 there was a lot of smiles in the Tockwith Motorsport garage as Nigel Moore scored a pole position on the team’s debut in the European Le Mans Series.  The British driver posted a 1m54.006 lap, nearly 8 tenths of the second placed car, the no9 Graff Ligier JS P3 of Enzo Guibbert.

Row 2 on the LMP3 grid will be headed by the no16 Panis Barthez Competition entry with Simon Gachet just 0.021s behind the no9 Ligier and 0.421s ahead of the 4^th placed car, the championship leading no2 United Autosports Ligier of Alex Brundle.  Brundle’s teammates in the no3 Ligier were unable to take part in qualifying due to an engine problem, which the team say will be fixed for tomorrow’s race.

The LMGTE grid will be headed by the no99 Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8 after Darren Turner claimed the first pole for the no99 car and the single championship point.  That point has put the team back at the top of the championship table as they now equal AT Racing on 48 points but because they have one win more than the Austrian team, they now head the points table before Round 4 of the 2016 ELMS.

The no56 AT Racing Ferrari will start the race in 2^nd place thanks to a 1m56.483 lap by Alessandro Pier Guidi, 0.198s behind Darren Turner’s pole time and 0.062s ahead of the no55 AF Corse Ferrari 458 driven by Matt Griffin.

The 4 Hours of Le Castellet, Round 4 of the 2016 European Le Mans Series, will start on Sunday 28 August at 14h00 (local).

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