Two down, one more to go! The third race in June’s trilogy of 24 hour battles commences, and with no less than 76 cars across five classes vying for glory, it’s sure to be an epic. But just who will come out on top in the most prestigious GT race in the world? It’s time to close the 72 Hours of June with a scorcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the first of the four fifteen qualifying sessions began the rain had truly arrived, meaning that by the five minute mark there was already a red flag. During the opening session the #21 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin of Nicholas Baert experienced snap oversteer after running on the outside kerb at Curve Paul Frere, slamming into the barriers and effectively ruling the car out of any further sessions. It left 10 minutes for the first driver from each car to set their times, with the average of all drivers individual lap times setting the provisional grid and crucially the top 20 who’ll go to Superpole tomorrow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Antaures Au of Rutronik Racing’s #97 was the pace setter in the opening first few minutes, purely by virtue of the fact he’d been one of the only runners to register a flying lap in the time before the red flag. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The session officially resumed at 21:31 local time, giving the first set of drivers a slim window to set their times. With the almost the full field now on full wet tyres as the track refused to allow dry running it would still prove anything but easy, as proven by the #52 AF Corse of Louis Machiels who on cold tyres with a lack of grip spun out and beached his Ferrari at Pouhon, bringing a halt to green flag running after barely a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Certainly in the opening session attrition was the big theme, as there’d be another red flag with just two and a half minutes to go. In an almost identical accident to Gabrielli Piana’s earlier crash at Eau Rouge. It was eerily another Mercedes, this time of Tim Sandler’s #611 of Nordique Racing in the Gold Cup class as the rain trickled back into the vicinity. By this point the total elapsed time for the first of four scheduled qualifying sessions was over 50 minutes. And after the final three minutes of the session the Bronze drivers could finally take some rest after a hectic hour. Taking the fastest time was Alexey Nesov in the #66 Tresor Attempto Racing, with Ben Dorr’s #23 Team RJN McLaren with Salman Owega’s #65 Silver Cup HRT Ford topping the timing sheets in that class. Pro\/Am was headed by the #29 AV by Car Collection Porsche. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that was just the first session, finally completed after just over an hour, with an eight minute turnaround time before the first Pro drivers took to the track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thankfully the second session ran cleanly, with the pro field slotting into the top positions with no other lap time to aggregate with Ayhancan Guven’s #22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche, Sandy Mitchell’s #163 VSR Lamborghini and the #17 Mercedes of Luca Stolz amongst the fastest runners in their first session with Dries Vanthoor the first driver to post a sub 2.17 time as the session closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the third session underway, the aggregate timing began to come to the fore as the top twenty began to take shape. Now effectively running at night, the first few quick times came from the likes of Reece Barr in the RJN #23 McLaren and another McLaren, this time the #59 of Marvin Kirchofer who put his team on provisional pole. Bastian Buus also put his #18 Dinamic GT Porsche into a provisional second, the team fresh off their podium at the N24 last week. Red flag number five then halted proceedings, another Comtoyou Aston Martin, the #11 of Sebastian Alvarez spinning into the barriers at Pouhon. In the remaining seven minutes with over half the field still yet to put a time on the board. Major improvements came from the likes of GRT’s #63 Lamborghini of Luca Engstler climbing into the top ten, Jesse Krohn’s #98 ROWE BMW, Matteo Cairoli’s #48 Team Mann-Filter Mercedes and Nicki Thiim’s #6 Comtoyou Aston Martin. all of whom put themselves in contention for a Superpole spot. On top though was Marvin Kirchofer and Garage 59’s #59 crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With one fifteen minute session remaining it was now time to decide who would make the top twenty and qualify for tomorrow’s Superpole session. With the grid mostly decided by now, it was a question of whether anyone could improve their car’s aggregate time enough to secure passage. Marco Sorensen moved his #8 Comtoyou Aston into eighth place, as Max Hesse’s #988, Henrique Chaves’s #34, Maxime Martin’s #9 moving up into the top twenty with one lap to go. Also in were two Gold Cup entries, the #33 Verstappen.com Racing Aston Martin, and the #92 Herberth Motorsport Porsche of Joel Sturm sneaking in as the only non-pro entries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But on provisional pole is the #59 Garage 59 McLaren ahead of WRT’s #31, Klaus Bachler’s #22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche and the #17 GetSpeed Mercedes complete the top four, with five manufacturers represented in the top six. A lengthy session with attrition early on has now decided the 20 teams locked in for Superpole tomorrow. It certainly took a while to get the order set but now we know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who will perform when it really matters though, and put themselves on pole position? We have less than 24 hours to wait… <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Special thanks to Cabose on the R\/WEC discord server for giving me permission to use their amazing pictures for this race! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thumbnail credit – Cabose via discord<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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