It was the qualifying of the “first times” that took place at Fuji, where Cadillac and Ferrari went on to take the Hyperpole for their respective categories.
The sun tried to make its way through the clouds that partially covered the sky above the Japanese track, illuminating a great day for Alex Lynn and François Heriau, who took the records in HYPERCAR and LMGT3 at the end of very hard-fought sessions in this penultimate event of the FIA World Endurance Championship season.
HYPERCAR: Caddy roar
Finally, the first Hyperpole arrives for Cadillac, which had long demonstrated its competitiveness since last year and suffered the insult of having lost the lead in extremis at Le Mans.
Lynn took to the track in top form from the first session and in the decisive one he made his final push in 1’28″901 at the wheel of the #2 V-Series.R, beating Ryo Hirakawa by just 0″041, who was already savouring a pole position start in his first qualifying session of the season with the #8 Toyota.
The last 12′ showed a very close grid, with 0″322 enclosing eight cars and many final blows that reshuffled the standings. Among these we note that of Dries Vanthoor, who climbed to third with the BMW #15 beating the Toyota #7 of Kamui Kobayashi by 6 thousandths, while in the Top5 there is also Kévin Estre as the best of the official Porsches of Team Penske, armed with the 963 #6.
Charles Milesi also took sixth place with the #35 Alpine, keeping behind the #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, who stopped 0″295 from the lead and keeping behind the #5 Porsche driven by Matt Campbell.
Despite the 0″681 gap, we must applaud the performance of Daniil Kvyat and the Lamborghini SC63 prepared by Iron Lynx, in the Top 10 for the first time and ready to start from the ninth position on the grid, alongside the Porsche #99 of Julien Andlauer, who gave Proton Competition the first Hyperpole among the private teams in the category.
#15 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello, Marco Wittmann, #20 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Sheldon Van Der Linde, Robin Frijns, Rene Rast
Photo by: Andreas Beil
In Q1 the fastest time was set by Lynn with the Cadillac in 1’29″090 in a very tight session that saw the Lamborghini gain access to the Hyperpole for the first time, beating the BMW #20 of Robin Frijns by 3 thousandths, who will therefore start 11th followed by the remaining Ferraris.
Antonio Giovinazzi was unable to do better than 12th in the #51 499P taking 0″682, Robert Kubica was 13th in the #83 AF Corse complaining about traffic and very little grip which left him at 0″739.
As often happens, both Peugeots are out of the fight for the top spot: Mikkel Jensen’s #93 is 14th in Kubica’s wake, while Loic Duval’s #94 is last, 1″ from the top.
Among the 9X8s are the Alpine #36 of Matthieu Vaxiviere and the disappointing Jota Porsches of Norman Nato and Oliver Rasmussen.
#55 View AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3: Francois Heriau, Simon Mann, Alessio Rovera
Photo credit: JEP / Motorsport Images
LMGT3: Ferrari at last!
Ferrari secures its first Hyperpole in the LMGT3 class in the 2024 season, with a brilliant François Heriau leading the way right from the start.
The Frenchman from AF Corse put the 296 #55 in front of everyone in 1’40″893 beating the excellent Tom Van Rompuy and the #81 Corvette of TF Sport by 0″082.
The second row goes to Josh Caygill in the #95 United Autosports McLaren, a couple of tenths behind, and the #85 Lamborghini of Sarah Bovy (Iron Dames), stopped at +0″327.
Top 5 for James Cottingham driving the #59 United Autosports McLaren, who is 0.4s off the top spot and a few hundredths ahead of the #78 Lexus of Arnold Robin (Akkodis ASP), who in turn is just ahead of Hiroshi Koizumi in the #82 Corvette-TF.
After the record achieved in Austin, Ian James finished eighth at the wheel of the #27 Aston Martin managed by his team, Heart Of Racing, while Thomas Flohr did not do better than ninth with the #55 AF Corse Ferrari, completing the top 10 together with the #77 Ford of Ryan Hardwick (Proton Competition), 0″8 behind the leader.
In the initial 12 minutes of Q1, where the best time was Heriau’s 1’40″932, the first of the eliminated was Takeshi Kimura on the #87 Lexus of Akkodis ASP, almost 0″3 from tenth place, just ahead of the #46 BMW of Team WRT with Ahmad Al Harthy – Valentino Rossi’s teammate – who was able to gain a few positions towards the end.
13th is the Aston Martin #777 of D’Station Racing driven by Clément Mateu, while the Porsches of Manthey PureRxcing #92 and Manthey EMA #91, driven respectively by Alex Malykhin and Yasser Shahin, are 1″ behind the lead, having paid the extra weight by finding themselves delayed, but still with plenty of margin to recover in the race.
Darren Leung was disappointing, only 16th with the #31 WRT BMW, while the rear-runners were completed by Christian Ried with his #88 Ford-Proton and Claudio Schiavoni, armed with the #60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini, both much slower than the best.
The 6 Hours of Fuji will start at 11:00 local time on Sunday, 4:00 in Italy.
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Q1 LMGT3
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