FIA GT1, Nürburgring – Qualifying Report
Fred Mak Claims Pole For Hexis

Qualifying for the penultimate round of the FIA GT1 Worlds Championship and the final round of the FIA GT3 European Championship took place concurrently on a foggy Nürburgring Grand Prix circuit on Saturday morning.  The session would follow the normal format of three rounds for the GT1 cars, while the two GT3 sessions (to set the grids for the two races) would last 20 minutes each. The session would also begin 45 minutes late following a shunt in the preceding BES test session that required a lengthy clear-up.

A timing issue meant that we had no visibility of the GT3 times, so this report will be for GT1 only.

Q1

Peter Kox sets the early pace, although with five minutes gone he had not yet beaten the best time from the Bronze-driver test. That soon improved considerably with both the Reiter driver and Laurens Vanthoor dropping into the 1:57s – the #32 Belgian Audi Club R8 ultra topping the times with 12 minutes to go. Kox was second, with Nicky Pastorelli third in the #37 All-Inkl Mercedes.

The GT1 times continued to come down, with Vanthoor improving to 1:55.921 at the half-way point – eight-tenths clear of Kox – but with Toni Vilander improving to third with a 1:56.837 in the #3 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia.

Vilander went top with his next lap – 1:55.855 – and improved times from Vanthoor and Enzo Ide in the #4 458 promoted them to second and third.

The two Vita4one BMW Z4s hadn’t yet shown their hand – both the #17 and #18 languishing at the bottom of the timing screen after a couple of very slow laps – but Yelmer Buurman started to make progress (albeit unspectacular) with five minutes to go.

A 1:56.222 from Oliver Jarvis took his #33 Audi to third with three minutes remaining, demoting Fred Makowiecki from that position; the Frenchman having just arrived there in the #1 Hexis McLaren.

With two to go, Buurman took the #18 BMW to third with a 1:56.022, but Matthias Lauda left his best effort for the final seconds…and could only manage an 11th fastest 1:58.174.

Q2

After a break of five minutes Q2 began, but by now the fog had lifted and it was sunny across the circuit. With so few cars, there had been no eliminations after the first session and so 13 cars started the second session.

Both Münnich Mercedes has struggled in the first session, but Thomas Jäger immediately knocked six-tenths off the #37’s Q1 time, while Markus Winkelhock improved the #38’s time by a second; and the cars briefly held P1 and P2 on the timing screens.

Winkelhock improved his time to 1:56.400 to go top, but almost immediately Stef Dusseldorp went two-tenths faster in the #1 Hexis McLaren. Alvaro Parente then went slightly quicker in the #2 MP4-12C, but the German driver was back in P1 with five minutes remaining after posting a 1:55.472.

Stephane Ortelli was in third at this point in the #32 Audi, while the two Mercedes had again slipped down to tenth and 12th places; clearly there was work to be done to get the SLS to work on the track.

Parente improved to 1:55.240 with two minutes to go to grab P1 from his teammate, who was headed for the pits, while Ortelli improved to 1:55.692 but remained in third.

Things looked a bit brighter for the Münnich cars as they improved to seventh and eighth as the flag fell, while a 1:55.873 from Stefan Rosina took the #25 Reiter Gallardo to fifth at the death and pushed the #24 sister car of Mike Parisy to sixth.

The top eight would go through to the final session, which meant that both AF Corse Ferraris, both Vita4One BMWs and the Sunred Ford GT would be taking no further part.

Q3

The battle for pole honours began under grey clouds, but on a dry track.

The faster lap times only started to appear with three minutes of the 10-minute session remaining, and it was Laurent Vanthoor who headed the timing screens with a 1:55.982 in the #32 Audi. Oliver Jarvis displaced him with two minutes to go, but he was himself bumped by the #1 McLaren of Fred Mak, who managed a 1:55.025 – a full half-second clear.

Vanthoor regained second on the final lap, while Thomas Jäger took fourth with a 1:55.811. Peter Kox and Mike Parisy locked up the third row for Reiter Engineering, while Grégoire Demoustier was seventh in the #2 McLaren and Marc Basseng eighth in the #38 Mercedes.

“It’s great to be on pole and as a team we are very happy,” said Makowiecki. “It’s important to be at the front here as the first corner can be a bit tricky.”

“I didn’t think starting in first position was possible for us,” admitted Stef Dusseldorp. “Everyone struggled with getting temperatures into the tyres and I’m sure it will be the same in the race. But Fred did the perfect lap and got us pole. We need to be careful in the race and make sure we do good pitstops, and if we do I think we’ve got a good chance.”

Oliver Jarvis in third place spoke further on the tyre issue; “It’s been very difficult to find a set up that gets heat into the tyres,” he explained. “The first two or three laps are like driving on ice before the temperatures come up. I’m surprised to be so far up, to be honest.

“The biggest surprise is that the BMWs and Ferraris didn’t make it [into Q3]; they’ve been strong all season.”

The Qualifying Race was due to begin at 14:05, but with the schedule already running 50 minutes late, it was a case of ‘watch this space’ for a new start time.

MH