After being fastest in all practice sessions, Audi now locked out the front row for the 6 Hours of the circuit of the Americas tonight.
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| © Marius Hecker - AdrenalMedia.com |
The #8 R18 driven by Lucas Di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis was fastest in all three practice sessions but had to settle for second in tonights qualifying session. Marcel Fässler and André Lotterer took pole position in a session where the fastest times were set in the dying minutes.
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| © Marius Hecker - AdrenalMedia.com |
With a 1.45.750, the Audi #7 crew was 0.233 seconds faster than the #8 R18. Third place on the grid is for last years winners at COTA, the #1 Porsche of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard, who will start behind both Audi's, with an average of 1.46.560.
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| © Marius Hecker - AdrenalMedia.com |
Despite Kobayashi being second fastest, his #6 Toyota is "only" fourth on the final starting grid, but inbetween both Porsches. The second Porsche 918 qualified in fifth place, ahead of the Toyota #5.
Rebellion Racing outpaced ByKolles in the privateer class and takes pole with a 1.53.646.
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| © Marius Hecker - AdrenalMedia.com |
In LMP2 championship leaders Nicolas Lapierre and Gustavo Menezes scored their forst pole position of the season. With average time of 1.55.892 in their #36 Signatech Alpine A460, they were almost a second faster the Roberto Merhi and Matt Rao in the #44 Manor Racing Oreca05. Third on the grid is the #43 RGR Sport Ligier JSP2, just under half a second behind the Manor. Another strong performance of the #42 Strakka Gibson 015S put the team fourth on the grid, with the #35 Baxi DC Racing Alpine rounding out the top 5.
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| © Marius Hecker - AdrenalMedia.com |
Drama for G-Drive Racing when Alex Brundle saw three of his laps deleted due to track limits in turn 9, not being able to set a time in the #26 Oreca and dropping down to last place on the grid.
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| © Ade Holbrook - AdrenalMedia.com |
Despite being hit by a BoP adjustment just before the raceweekend, Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorenson in their #95 "Dane Train" Aston Martin were fastest in GTE-Pro in an average time of 2.04.610. Davide Rigon and Sam Bird take second spot on the grid, only 0.042 seconds behind in their #71 AF Corse Ferrari 488. The Ford GT #66 with Stefan Mücke and Olivier Pla at the wheel was third fastest in its home race, just ahead of the #51 AF Corse and #97 Aston Martin.
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| © Marius Hecker - AdrenalMedia.com |
In the GTE-Am category, it's another Aston Martin on top of the timetables. Paul Dalla Lana and Pedro Lamy were fastest in their #98 Vantage V8 with a 2.07.683. Khaled Al Qubaisi who won the last race in Mexico was second fastest together with Kevin Estre in their #88 Abu Dhabi Proton Porsche, but already 0.612 seconds behind the leaders. The two other Porsches in class were third (#78 KCMG) and fourth (#86 Gulf Racing) in class.
The green flag for the race will be waived at 17.00h this afternoon local time.
Qualifying results
Results FP1
Results FP2
Results FP3
Kristof Vermeulen.