FIA GT Championship – Oschersleben – Qualifying Report
2K And 10K, On Pirellis

Correction: the #4 Corvette runs on Michelins now.

Anthony Kumpen’s second pole position, and Andrew Kirkaldy’s tenth – those were two of the stories at Oschersleben. To others were that the GLPK Corvette C5-R took the GT1 pole by even more than the margin that Karl Wendlinger enjoyed at Monza, while Kirkaldy headed a great bunch of GT2s within (the same) seven-tenths.

Fifth to eleventh in GT1 was very close though.

Kumpen and Longin have been scoring points very consistently (two thirds, two fifths), but in contrast to Monza, here was a track that really suited the wold warhorse C5.

“We knew from Zhuhai that our car was good on this kind of track, which is a medium-fast track,” said the spikey-haired Belgian. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow, and I’m very happy with this pole. It’s been a while since I’ve had pole so it’s nice to be up here again. I set the last pole for a Viper in 2003 - I hope it won’t be the last for a C5.”

He had a big grassy moment to start the 15 minute session, but warmed his Pirellis a little more and went for it again nearly ten minutes later. A whole bunch of them had topped the list before that, but Kumpen took the top spot, ahead of Stefan Mucke’s Lamborghini, by 11 thousandths more than seven-tenths.

The Lamborghini used all that traction and power for second, Mucke commenting that “we know that are car runs better on this kind of track than others, but second place was more than we expected”.

Karl Wendlinger was very close behind in third, despite 40 kg, ahead of the Andrea Bertolini #11 Playteam MC12, then the other Jet Alliance DBR9, which headed the really close group in the 1:26s. That list comprised the two Vitaphone MC12s, the Carsport Holland C6.R, the faster BMS Aston Martin and the other Lamborghini.

Wendlinger commented on how tough the competition is these days, and success ballast certainly seems to work based on his drop to third on the grid. The Spa 24 Hours sees the cars abandon success ballast for one race.

The GT2s were out before the GT1s, and ten mnutes into the session, Andrew Kirklady took the pole, just ahead of the two ballasted AF Corse Ferraris.

“I’m really pleased with that lap as we didn’t expect qualifying to go quite so well,” said the Scot. “We had used a softer tyre during the practice sessions which worked well but wasn’t right for the race. We opted to take a harder tyre that we hadn’t really run on before for qualifying so it was a gamble. It took a few laps to get up to temperature but the third lap was the sweet one! I certainly can’t complain about my record and now I’m looking forward to the good race that Chris (Niarchos) and I are going to have tomorrow.”

Dirk Muller was second quickest, and as at Monza, he was surprised at how competitive he was, carrying ballast. Gianmaria Bruni was third, while Sean Edwards was a very close fourth, and fastest Porsche man, in the Tech 9 997. But it might take a Lime Rock Park-like moment to prevent the Ferraris winning this one on Sunday.