Le Mans Series, 6 Hours Of Le Castellet - GT Qualifying First Pole Position For Ferrari 458 – 2 In Row For AF Corse!
Cioci and Simonsen set the early pace in their respective classes, Simmo’s 1:59.244 the early benchmark that he left the others to challenge when he pitted after just three laps. Armindo inevitably took over in GTE Am with a 1:59.370 that no-one in GTE Am (and only Holzer in any of the GT Pro Porsches) could match. Felbermayr Jr was an excellent second in the Am sub-class with a 2:00.354, then Cioci with a 2:00.470, Peter with a 2:00.698. CRS and AF Corse (Aguas) were a further half second and one second back respectively. Nicolas Armindo was keen to stress that his transition from a Carrera Cup Porsche to the GT2 version was a “Huge step with a lot to learn and take in, and very little time here to adapt.” That wasn’t a bad start Nicolas! In GT Pro it was more of the same for Ferrari on good news Saturday – Bruni going top with a string of top sector times and a best of 1:58.522. That meant a first pole position for the Ferrari 458 Italia and a second consecutive pole in 2011 for AF Corse after their Sebring efforts in the ‘old’ 430 GT2. Enge’s first flier was a 1:58.823 which put him second, he found another half-tenth but nothing more. Bell popped up late in the session and took third with a 1:59.119. #71 will start fourth thanks to Vilander’s 1:59.144, then #89. So Porsche have looked strong until qualifying, but now start behind all bar one of the competition in the order #75 (then GT Am Armindo), #77 and #76. Willi Dinstl of Porsche PR said (as the Felbemayr Proton drivers debriefed) “the team worked not especially for qualifying, it was done on a long distance set-up which gave a little understeer. The [lack of] difference in times shows that it will be a sprint race with everyone pitting together at the same time. I am not sure if Ferrari went with a qualifying set-up, but the Bruni car has come back very well from an accident a short while ago in practice. We often had the same situation last year where we weren’t the quickest over a lap but we won the championship and we still have the same team and the same people deciding the strategy.” Hancock was a further 3/4s back in Jota’s Vantage, the Jota car suffering with a recurring sticking throttle. It seems the 997 works less well in the higher temperatures than their Ferrari competition but with eight of the nine GT Pro cars covered by less than a second the race tomorrow promises to be spectacularly close.This will be good! Gimmi Bruni: “Giancarlo did some great work on set-up earlier whereas I only managed an out lap and a crash! It was a big impact (150 km/h) and the team did a fantastic job to rebuild the car. We were on the scales just 2 minutes before qualifying began!” | 
