The #36 Alpine Elf Team driver of Nicolas Lapierre secured their second ever Hypercar pole position for tomorrow’s 1000 Miles of Sebring.
The first qualifying session posed a tough challenge for drivers to bring their tyres up to temperature and bring out their best efforts at a fast qualifying lap-time as dusk set at Sebring International Raceway.
As per usual with the World Endurance Championship, it was 10 minutes allocated to GTE-Pro and Am qualifying followed by 10 minutes for the Hypercar and LMP2s.
Three minutes into the GTE qualifying, the Am #46 of Nicolas Leutwiler spun and put the rear of his Porsche 911 RSR GTE into the tyre barrier.
Despite the light bodywork damage caused, the car was unable to continue with the rules stating those who cause a red flag are unable to continue participating.
The remainder saw GTE drivers hurry and warm up their tyres to put out more competitive lap-times.
Nick Tandy was the first to set the pace in the Corvette C8.R, but Porsche soon showed their true colours.
Michael Christensen edged out Gianmaria Bruni with a time of 1m57.233s, the fastest ever for a GTE-Pro car.
TF Sport’s Ben Keating was a star in the GTE-Am class taking pole position after setting a 1m59.204s, which put him ahead of both factory Ferrari entries.
Heading into the second part of qualifying, it was a session of mixed emotions with a more dramatic incident ending the session early.
LMP2 was typically competitive as drivers yet again pushed to the limits and fought for track space.
The likes of United Autosports asserted strong form as they put themselves P2 and P3 in the class.
Both WRTs qualified one behind another, as did both JOTAs.
It was, however, Nicklas Nielsen who grabbed class-pole position with a 1m49.014s which put him third overall, in front of both Toyota GR010 Hybrids.
Speaking of that top class, the #708 Glickenhaus Racing of Olivier Pla attempted to keep the SCG 007 LMH composed, which proved challenging at Sebring’s unforgiving bumps.
Nicolas Lapierre in the #36 set out strong and confident pace in the A480 Gibson early into the session, and set a 1m47.407s which secured Alpine their second overall pole position since Portimao last year.
Whilst the #708 set themselves P2 alongside Alpine, Toyota GAZOO Racing struggled to show off their qualifying pace.
The session was cut 30 seconds short after the #34 of Fabio Scherer pushed his Oreca 07 hard and hit the tyre barrier at Turn 1, and walked away from a less-than-ideal qualifying display.
With P4 and P7 overall, Toyota GAZOO Racing will be set on catching up to their Hypercar rivals who start on the front row with promising race pace to unleash.
| OVERALL POSITION | CLASS POSITION | TEAM | DRIVER | FASTEST TIME |
DIFF. TO POLE (Seconds)
|
| Hypercar | |||||
| 1 | 1 | #36 Alpine Elf Matmut | Nicolas Lapierre | 1m47.407s | – – |
| 2 | 2 | #708 Glickenhaus Racing | Olivier Pla | 1m48.741s | + 1.334 |
| 4 | 3 | #8 Toyota GAZOO Racing | Brendon Hartley | 1m49.217s | + 1.810 |
| 7 | 4 | #7 Toyota GAZOO Racing | Jose Maria Lopez | 1m49.581s | + 2.174 |
| LMP2 | |||||
| 3 | 1 | #83 AF Corse (Pro/Am) | Nicklas Nielsen | 1m49.014s | + 1.607 |
| 5 | 2 | #22 United Autosports USA | Filipe Albuquerque | 1m49.388s | + 1.981 |
| 6 | 3 | #23 United Autosports USA | Paul Di Resta | 1m49.510s | + 2.103 |
| 8 | 4 | #31 WRT | Rene Rast | 1m49.670s | + 2.263 |
| 9 | 5 | #41 RealTeam by WRT | Ferdinand Habsburg | 1m49.688s | + 2.281 |
| 10 | 6 | #9 Prema Orlen Team | Robert Kubica | 1m50.057s | + 2.650 |
| 11 | 7 | #28 JOTA | Jonathan Aberdein | 1m50.178s | + 2.771 |
| 12 | 8 | #38 JOTA | Antonio Felix Da Costa | 1m50.596s | + 3.189 |
| 13 | 9 | #5 Team Penske | Dane Cameron | 1m50.629s | + 3.222 |
| 14 | 10 | #1 Richard Mille Racing Team | Charles Milesi | 1m50.916s | + 3.509 |
| 15 | 11 | #35 Ultimate (Pro/Am) | Matthieu Lahaye | 1m50.954s | + 3.547 |
| 16 | 12 | #10 Vector Sport | Nico Mueller | 1m50.955s | + 3.548 |
| 17 | 13 | #44 ARC Bratislava (Pro/Am) | Mathias Beche | 1m51.182s | + 3.775 |
| 18 | 14 | #45 Algarve Pro Racing (Pro/Am) | James Allen | 1m51.332s | + 3.925 |
| 19 | 15 | #34 Inter Europol Competition | Fabio Scherer | NO TIME SET | N/A |
| LM-GTE Pro | |||||
| 20 | 1 | #92 Porsche GT Team | Michael Christensen | 1m57.223s | – – |
| 21 | 2 | #91 Porsche GT Team | Gianmaria Bruni | 1m57.383s | + 0.150 |
| 22 | 3 | #64 Corvette Racing | Nick Tandy | 1m57.696s | + 0.463 |
| 24 | 4 | #51 AF Corse | James Calado | 1m59.299s | + 2.066 |
| 25 | 5 | #52 AF Corse | Antonio Fuoco | 1m59.388s | + 2.155 |
| LM-GTE Am | |||||
| 23 | 1 | #33 TF Sport | Ben Keating | 1m57.204 | + 1.971 |
| 26 | 2 | #98 NorthWest AMR | Paul Dalla Lana | 2m00.570s | + 3.337 |
| 27 | 3 | #56 Team Project 1 | Brendon Iribe | 2m00.649s | + 3.416 |
| 28 | 4 | #85 Iron Dames | Sarah Bovy | 2m01.140s | + 3.907 |
| 29 | 5 | #777 D’station Racing | Satoshi Hoshino | 2m01.379s | + 4.146 |
| 30 | 6 | #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing | Christien Reid | 2m02.079s | + 4.846 |
| 31 | 7 | #54 AF Corse | Thomas Flohr | 2m02.264s | + 5.031 |
| 32 | 8 | #71 Spirit of Race | Franck Dezoteux | 2m02.800s | + 5.567 |
| 33 | 9 | #21 AF Corse | Christoph Ulrich | 2m03.116s | + 5.883 |
| 34 | 10 | #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing | Fred Poordad | 2m03.560s | + 6.327 |
| 35 | 11 | #60 Iron Lynx | Claudio Schiavoni | 2m03.726s | + 6.493 |
| 36 | 12 | #46 Team Project 1 | Nicolas Leutwiler | NO TIME SET | N/A |
