Lamborghini celebrates the first Pole Position of the 2024 season of the GT World Challenge Europe thanks to the super performance obtained in Qualifying at Paul Ricard by Mirko Bortolotti, Andrea Caldarelli and Matteo Cairoli.
On the Le Castellet track the trio of Huracan GT3 EVO2 #63 prepared by Iron Lynx set an average time of 1'53″027, especially thanks to the Trentino and Como drivers, while Caldarelli suffered from the traffic in Q1 in which a red flag exposed halfway through the 15 minutes available (due to a collision between two cars) forced everyone to push in the great final chaos.
Heinrich/Guven/Boccolacci also did very well with the Porsche #22 of Schumacher-CLRT who achieved second place at +0″187, while in third place was the Mercedes #2 of Schiller/Stolz/Gounon (GetSpeed), capable of mocking the Lamborghini #163 of Mapelli/Engelhart/Perera after the GRT trio had been fighting for the front row for a long time.
#63 Iron Lynx, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2: Mirko Bortolotti, Andrea Caldarelli, Matteo Cairoli
Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo
In the Top5 we also find the BMW #998 of Rowe Racing in the hands of Hesse/Harper/Farfus, who narrowly keeps behind those of Team WRT driven by Marciello/Martin/Rossi (with 'Lello' making the difference for the trio #46) and Vanthoor/Weerts/Van Der Linde (#32).
Behind the M4s there are two McLarens from Garage 59 and eighth place in the general classification goes to the #188 of Prette/Cottingham/Smalley which takes Pole in the Bronze Class, followed by fellow PROs Gamble/Macdonald/Goethe and the BMW # 98 of Rowe Racing entrusted to Wittmann/Yelloly/Eng who completes the Top10 +0″654 from the leaders.
The best of the Ferraris is the 296 #51 of AF Corse-Francorchamps Motors driven by Rovera/Rigon/Pier Guidi, even if the traffic in Q1 had a significant influence on the performance of the driver from Varese. Their companions in #71, Neubauer/Abril/Vidales, however, did not go beyond 27th place, 1″2 from the top, in a ranking that is, as always, rather short.
#46 Team WRT, BMW M4 GT3: Maxime Martin, Raffaele Marciello, Valentino Rossi
Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo
To complete the Bronze Cup discussion, second place goes to Cheever/Froggatt/Hui with the Ferrari #93 of Sky-Tempesta Racing, beating the Porsche #97 of Rutronik Racing (Marschall/Hartog/Blattner).
In the Silver Cup Class it's a hat trick for Mercedes led by the #90 of Madpanda (Perez Companc/Assenheimer) in Pole with the #57 of Caresani/Arrow/Sathienthirakul (Winward Racing) behind and Panis/Meyuhas/Gazeau with the #10 of Boutsen VDS.
Finally, in the Gold Cup category, the Mercedes #777 of AlManar with Grenier/Baumann/Al Zubair comes out on top, followed by the Audis of Saintéloc Racing (#25 Pla/Magnus/Evrard) and CSA Racing (#111 Rougier/Carton/Eteki ).
The departure of the 3h of Paul Ricard is scheduled for 3pm.
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