Double Pole for Panis Barthez Competition

LMGTE were out on track first and Cairoli was fighting with Andrea Bertolini in the no66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari, Alessandro Pier Guidi in the AT Racing Ferrari and Marco Cioci in the no51 AF Corse Ferrari. At the end of the 10 minute session Cairoli held a slim 0.121s advantage over Bertolini in second and 0.167s Pier Guidi in third.

LMP3 was out on track straight after the LMGTE session but the qualifying was interrupted by a red flag to recover the no8Race Performance Ligier-Nissan of Giorgio Maggi which had stopped in a dangerous position at Turn 4.  The session was quickly resumed after a few minutes and Simon Gachet making a bid for pole with a 1m26.364.  His time was challenged and then surpassed by Wayne Boyd in the no3 United Autosports Ligier.  The French driver was just 0.016s behind the Anglo-American team as the chequered flag came out.  Gachet crossed the line in a 1m26.126 to take pole from Boyd by just 0.157 seconds and the first front row start for the French team.

The smiles in the Panis Barthez Competition garage got even bigger as the LMP2 session progressed.  Nicolas Lapierre in the no21 Dragonspeed Oreca set the early pace but was soon under pressure from Harry Tincknell in the no38 G Drive Racing Gibson and Mathias Beche in the no46 Thiriet by TDS Racing Oreca.  However it was Paul Loup Chatin in the no23 Panis Barthez Competition Ligier that took control at the right time with a 1m20.720 lap, 0.053s ahead of Mathias Beche. 

Chatin’s time was 2.2 seconds faster than last year’s pole position time set by Harry Tincknell in the no38 Gibson-Nissan and the top five cars in LMP2 were covered by less than 0.26 seconds setting the scene for an action packed race at the Red Bull Ring tomorrow.

The 4 Hours of Red Bull Ring will get underway at 14h00 on Sunday 17 July.  The race will be streamed live on the official series website at www.europeanlemansseries.com

CLICK HERE for the result from qualifying

CLICK HERE to watch the press conference