Le Mans Series, Estoril - Saturday - Prototype Qualifying Report

It was another slow start to the prototype session, where pressure was high on Pescarolo, Strakka and Boutsen Energy to bag pole to keep their championship hunt alive and on Greaves Motorsport to bag pole to win the championship.

The key protagonists were Ebbesvik and Watts for Boutsen Energy and Strakka respectively, but Greaves’ Tom Kimber-Smith waited to see where the benchmark would be set before venturing out with nine minutes to go. 

In P1 Jousse stepped forward to battle with Boullion, whilst Jani also waited for the same nine minute mark to join in.

The magic nine was a winning ploy as Kimber-Smith notched up two laps comfortably clear of Watts and Ebbesvik’s best efforts, and Jani’s one and only flier of a 1:30.118 was good enough for pole, somewhat to his surprise.  “We felt very confident after this morning and we knew if the first lap was clear then in normal circumstances we would get pole and it was, even with quite a big mistake on that lap.  We expect a challenge from Pescarolo, we have seen that their reliability is very good and their race tactics are very good so it will be a big fight.”

Jousse will be the Pescarolo in the Rebellion sandwich with a 1:30.317, after a spin baulked his attempt to take the fight back.  Boullion was two-tenths further back.

In P2 Kimber-Smith confirmed “We are definitely champions, even though others can tie with us we have more wins.  The team have produced such a fantastic car, we have had no reliability issues at all to date.  We’ve won all the races apart from Spa.  Strakka have pushed us hard and we have been quick, we haven’t just stumbled across results as some have said, hopefully this proves that we are quick.  We left it late in the session to try to get the best track position and I had the track to myself and did two identical laptimes, either of which would have been good enough for pole.  The pressure is off now, so we just have to go and win the race.  There is a really big fight for second in the championship so it will be good for us to get clear from that out the front.”

Watts and Ebbesvik were defenceless in the pits and when Kimber-Smith’s opening 31.888 became a 31.800 dead on his second lap, they didn’t even try to take the fight despite having time for one last effort.  Watts’ best was a 1:32.072 and Ebbesvik’s a 1:32.695, Beche will start between these two with a 1:32.347.

In FLM Kapadia led Simon in FLM initially but Marroc was last man out, he bettered his time of this morning but it was only good enough for second.  Kapadia had been hiding his pace somewhat so far, but when it counted he set a 1:36.044, nearly half a second to the good.

1.   #12 1:30.118
2.   #16 1:30.317
3.   #13 1:30.592
4.   #41 1:31.800
5.   #42 1:32.072
6.   #46 1:32.347
7.   #45 1:32.695
8.   #40 1:33.286
9.   #39 1:33.525
10. #43 1:34.066
11. #44 1:34.168
12. #92 1:36.044
13. #99 1:36.480
14. #95 1:37.474

PS