ELMS : Pole for Mathias Beche

 

 

Swiss driver Mathias Beche took pole position in qualifying for the 6 Hours of Le Castellet, the opening round of the European Le Mans Series.

In optimal weather conditions, qualification for the 6 Hours of Le Castellet were divided into two sessions of twenty minutes each: one reserved for prototypes, to the other for GT cars.

At 15:50, the drivers of LM P2 and LM PC set off to conquer the 5.8 km circuit of Paul Ricard. With a time of 1.48:171,Mattias Beche produced the best performance of the day. The TDS Racing team, won twice last year (Spa-Francorchamps, Estoril), asserted themselves as a favourites for the race tomorrow ... But competition tough: just 0.3 seconds behind, Yelmer Buurman put the Lola-Judd of Status GP a close second. Behind them, Tom Kimber-Smith in the Zytek-Nissan and Guillaume Moreau in the Morgan-Judd. The first four places are occupied by four different chassis, which augurs well for a very open race!

Mathias Beche: "It was expected that the Morgan would be faster ... We continued to believe that the Oak Racing are not showing full speed. We'll see tomorrow. There are a fewer cars on the track than last year, but traffic remains an important component. We will remain cautious during the 6 hour race. "

After his retirement at the first stage in the Rally of Portugal, Sebastien Loeb came to support its troops in Le Castellet. At the wheel of the Oreca was Stephane Sarrazin, who recently won the 12 Hours of Sebring in LM P2, who qualified seventh.

Another highly anticipated star, Sebastien Buemi, borrowed from Toyota Racing by Boutsen Ginion, could not take the track. Their Oreca-Nissan prototype being repaired after a fire this morning during the first free practice session. The car will start tomorrow at the back of the grid with the Norma-Judd that also remained in its box because of an engine problem.

In the LM PC, the best time achieved by Massimo Vignali boosted the morale of the team Ginion Boutsen Racing. In GTE Pro, Brazilian Jaime Melo's Ferrari 458 Italia of JMB Racing was fastest, while the Belgian Marc Goossens, Porsche, set the fastest lap in GTE Am,

Classification of qualifications (PDF): click here

6 Hours of Castellet will start at noon tomorrow (Sunday 1st April )

Julien Hergault

Photo: Paul Ricard circuit (LE CASTELLET), 6 HOURS CASTELLET, QUALIFYING, MARCH 31, 2012. The Belgian Mathias Beche set his first pole position in the European Le Mans Series