Kamui Kobayashi took overall pole position during qualifying for the opening FIA World Endurance Championship round at Spa-Francorchamps.
Qualifying ahead of the opening round, the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, was split into two sessions: one for the two GTE classes, and the other for LMP2 and Hypercar qualifying.
The GTE session started in dramatic fashion as #77 of Christian Reid lost the rear of his Porsche 911 RSR on his out-lap and crashed at the top of the Eau Rouge-Raidillon complex. He got out the car safely and conscious.
After a brief red flag period, with six-and-a-half minutes on the clock in the GTE session, the #56 of Egidio Perfetti had a heavy crash in the same place and of similar nature to Reid.
Both of these crashes, on their out-laps, could be put down to cold tyres and low tyre pressures.
Several cars had their first laps deleted, leaving a single-flying lap as their main attempt. The debuting D’Station Racing squad being one of them.
In GTE-Pro, Kevin Estre of the #92 stormed to the top with a potent GTE lap record of a 2m11.219s.
Ben Keating sought redemption after the crash earlier at the Prologue this week but secured class-pole in his first days in the #33 Aston Martin Vantage GTE.
LMP2 qualifying was an intense fight but the #22 of Filipe Albuquerque secured the fifth-consecutive class pole position in the FIA WEC LMP2; it is their 10th consecutive-pole in light of all their sportscar commitments carried over from last year.
The reigning LMP2 world champion set a time over two-tenths quicker than the #36 Alpine Elf Matmut Hypercar in the class above.
His main rival for pole was current Formula E championship leader Nyck De Vries in the #26 who closely rivaled the pace of the Portuguese driver.
Reigning world LMP drivers’ champion Kamui Kobayashi secured overall pole position and the first in Toyota’s new GR010 Hybrid. A time of 2m00.747s was pushed out ahead of his compatriot Kazuki Nakajima who did a 2m01.266s in the sister #8 car.
If you're going to spend a couple of minutes watching anything, why not make it @kamui_kobayashi's history-making #6HSpa pole lap. Enjoy! ☺️ #GoHyper #PushingTheLimitsForBetter @FIAWEC pic.twitter.com/hBcEScBR6Z
— TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WEC (@TGR_WEC) April 30, 2021
| OVERALL POSITION | CLASS POSITION | TEAM | DRIVER | FASTEST TIME |
| Hypercar | ||||
| 1 | 1 | #7 Toyota GAZOO Racing | Kamui Kobayashi | 2m00.747s |
| 2 | 2 | #8 Toyota GAZOO Racing | Kazuki Nakajima | 2m01.266s |
| 4 | 3 | #36 Alpine Elf Matmut | Nicolas Lapierre | 2m02.652s |
| LMP2 | ||||
| 3 | 1 | #22 United Autosports | Filipe Albuquerque | 2m02.404s |
| 5 | 2 | #26 G-Drive Racing | Nyck De Vries | 2m02.984s |
| 6 | 3 | #29 Racing Team Nederland | Giedo Van Der Garde | 2m03.435s |
| 7 | 4 | #70 Realteam Racing (Pro/Am) | Norman Nato | 2m03.475s |
| 8 | 5 | #25 G-Drive Racing (Pro/Am) | Roberto Merhi | 2m03.485s |
| 9 | 6 | #28 JOTA | Stoffel Vandoorne | 2m03.516s |
| 10 | 7 | #38 JOTA | Anthony Davidson | 2m03.625s |
| 11 | 8 | #21 DragonSpeed USA (Pro/Am) | Ben Hanley | 2m03.816s |
| 12 | 9 | #24 PR1 Motorsports (Pro/Am) | Gabriel Aubry | 2m03.869s |
| 13 | 10 | #31 Team WRT | Robin Frijns | 2m03.915s |
| 14 | 11 | #34 Inter Europol Competition (Pro/Am) | Alex Brundle | 2m04.207s |
| 15 | 12 | #1 Richard Mille Racing | Tatiana Calderon | 2m05.284s |
| 16 | 13 | #44 ARC Bratislava (Pro/Am) | Darren Burke | 2m05.522 |
| 17 | 14 | #20 High Class Racing | Anders Fjordbach | 2m07.051s |
| LM-GTE Pro | ||||
| 18 | 1 | #92 Porsche GT Team | Kevin Estre | 2m11.219s |
| 19 | 2 | #52 AF Corse | Miguel Molina | 2m12.351s |
| 20 | 3 | #91 Porsche GT Team | Richard Lietz | 2m12.370s |
| 21 | 4 | #51 AF Corse | Alessandro Pier Guidi | 2m12.443s |
| 22 | 5 | #63 Corvette Racing | Antonio Garcia | 2m13.106s |
| LM-GTE Am | ||||
| 23 | 1 | #33 TF Sport | Ben Keating | 2m14.660s |
| 24 | 2 | #98 Aston Martin Racing | Paul Dalla Lana | 2m15.615s |
| 25 | 3 | #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing | Andrew Haryanto | 2m16.319s |
| 26 | 4 | #54 AF Corse | Thomas Flohr | 2m16.367s |
| 27 | 5 | #83 AF Corse | François Perrodo | 2m17.560s |
| 28 | 6 | #47 Cetilar Racing | Roberto Lacorte | 2m17.719s |
| 29 | 7 | #85 Iron Lynx | Manuela Gostner | 2m18.452s |
| 30 | 8 | #86 GR Racing | Michael Wainwright | 2m18.813s |
| 31 | 9 | #60 Iron Lynx | Claudio Schiavoni | 2m20.356s |
| 32 | 10 | #56 Team Project 1 | Egidio Perfetti | NO TIME |
| 33 | 11 | #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing | Christian Ried | NO TIME |
| 34 | 12 | #777 D’station Racing | Satoshi Hoshino | 2m19.870s* |
