Le Mans Series

LMS Nürburgring 1000 km - Qualifying

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

It was a comanding 1-2 for Peugeot at qualifying for the LMS Nürburgring 1000 km this afternoon. Marc Gené managed pole in a very impressive 1.39.492 while Pedro lamy went around the Grand prix circuit in 1.39.515, a few thousandths of a second away from his team mate, to grab second.

Strong performance from the Charouz Lola-Aston in third. The LMP2 pole was for Verstappen on the Van Merksteijn Porsche, in GT1 Enge got Modena on pole while Anthony Beltoise grabbed his first LMS GT2 pole on the Farnbacher Ferrari.

Qualifying started as usual with both GT classes going out. It was a dogfight as usual in GT2 but GT1 was shocked by a 1.52.387 set by Tomas Enge on the Modena Aston Martin completely obliterating the times set by all other GT1 teams. As a reference works driver Olivier Beretta on the 73 Luc Alphand Corvette was second 1.2 seconds behind…. The 77 Felbermayr and 76 IMSA Porsches completed the GT2 top 3 making clear we will again have a very close race tomorrow.

On the LMP1 side the sensations were the Peugeot times (even if the pole time was half a second slower than Lamy’s morning lap) but also the Lola-Aston Martin ahead of both Audis in a 1.40.951 proving the evolution of what is clearly the fastest petrol car. Epsilon Euskadi 10th overall ahead of both Pescarolos in 1.43.649 with a grat job by Adrián Vallés was another highlight of the session.

A 1.43.161 was the LMP2 pole time set by Jos Verstappen on the van Merksteijn Porsche 0.5 ahead of Casper Elgaard on the Essex RS Spyder. Elgaard led qualifying for quite some time showing that the Dunlops are going well here and the top times on both sessions yesterday are a sign of them being a very strong candidate for the race win. Andrea Belicchi put the Speedy-Sebah Lola on third with a time of 1.43.981 while Michael Vergers on 1.44.013 was very impressive yet again on a very quick Zytek. Embassy also stronger than ever with Jonny Kane also on the 1.44 range.

A very attractive race in perspective therefore, starting tomorrow at 12:05 CET (1 hour earlier in the UK, 6:05 EST).