Le Mans Series, Algarve - GT Qualifying

20 minutes of qualifying for the GT cars first this morning at 9:50 am (with the warm-up session to follow later!!)

Spyker is first out, after a traumatic evening session yesterday with a problematic gearbox change leaving them with very limited track time.  Peter Dumbreck has the circuit to himself this morning for the first 5 minutes - 1:45.526 the first effort.

After that though it was a crushing display from the Ferrari pack, briefly running 1,2,3,4,5 before the big guns were brought to bear and staying as 1,2,3 in GT2 with the leading pair of AF Corse cars duking it out for class pole honours, Gimmi Bruni and Toni Vilander trading fastest sector times as the pole time tumbled - Bruni finally grabbed it with a 1:43.310, Vilander just two tenths shy of that excellent time.

Tim Mullen pushed hard but could only bring the #91 CRS Ferrari home third on the grid, 1:44.009 after a near fatal fumble by the team which saw them expecting qualifying to start half an hour later!  6 other runners broke into the 1:44s with Ragginger best of the Porsches, 4th fastest in the #88 Felbermayr Proton 997 ahead of Pilet and Lietz in the #76 IMSA Performance and #77 Felbermayr Porkers.

The whole field of 12 GT2s is separated by just 2.2 seconds

The mighty tussle that is GT1 was won by the #66 Atlas FX etc Saleen, 1:43.975 enough to take class pole for Carlo Van Damm as Gabriele Gardel suffered a lock up and threepenny bit tyres earl on in the session in the rival Larbre machine.

Gianmaria Bruni: "The car suits this circuit very well and we found a really good set-up last night.  Porsche have had a bit of luck this year so far, they're certainly not faster than us. We'll be there in the race today."