LMS Nürburgring – Saturday – GT Qualifying
Kaffer Claims Pole For Hankook

Qualifying took place under dry, sunny and warm conditions, more akin to yesterday afternoon than this morning.  It was a slow start for most with only seven times posted in the first nine minutes.

Bell and Lieb were the 10th and 11th cars out, Bell straight to the top with a 1:58.444, Lieb just 3/100ths one behind.  Kaffer was just a further 1/10th back in the Hankook Ferrari.  Lieb’s next was a 1:58.228 but it was Kaffer and not Bell that would displace him with a 1:57.982.  That was to be the pole-position time. 

Hankook’s tyre engineer explained that the tyres developed for use here follow a test at the Nurburgring in June and they are delighted with the direction things are going this weekend.  Particularly so after a slightly disappointing time in the Algarve, where they used a tyre derived from data from an April test at the Algarve and a later test at the Bugatti circuit at Le Mans.

In GT1 Laurent Groppi bagged the fastest time in each sector and therefore class pole with a 1:55.238, ¾ of a second ahead of Goueslard in the Corvette.  He then reinforced the place by finding another tenth on his next lap.  This was still some way shy of the GT1 times from this morning’s practice session though.  “It was a good qualification for us.  For me it’s my first participation in the championship and whilst the class is only two cars it’s a good thing.  It’s a good track for the Saleen but we will see what happens in the race tomorrow.”

With two minutes to go Montermini went off and had to be retrieved in the #91 FBR, bringing the yellow flags out, but the times weren’t frozen yet...

Garcia put Modena’s metaphorical pin in the map and capitalised on Lieb and Bell being in the pits, moving into second place in GT2 with a 1:58.098.

Behind them will start the Felbermayr/JMW duel in that order, then Pilet, Coronel, Beltoise, Cocker and Scheier, all below 2:00. 

Kaffer “I’m glad to be here in my home race, tomorrow I’ll have lots of fans crossing their fingers for us!  It’s the first pole for the Hankook team, we only started in December and its quite an achievement to be here already.  It’s amazing what they have done in such a short time.  We are quite confident and we’ll have to see how our tyres do in the race tomorrow.  I was a bit surprised with my lap.  It wasn’t that bad and it felt quite quick so I was apologising for not being as fast as this morning when the time came up, but the team were saying, ‘no, it’s fine, it’s P1!’.  The guys from Hankook have done a brilliant job from the Algarve to here.”

PS