Peugeot and BMW at the forefront
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Peugeot and BMW at the forefront

Driving the 908 #7, Anthony Davidson set the fastest time in qualifying. The Englishman and his teammate Sebastien Bourdais will start from pole position. In the GTE class, BMW will have two M3 GT in the first two places on the grid.

Since the first free practice session, the Peugeots were particularly comfortable on the track at Imola, only Marcel Fässler in the third session on Saturday morning to raised the nose of his Audi in front the of the Peugeot Lions. But not for long because in qualifying, the fastest time went to Anthony Davidson (908 #7) with a time of 1'31''736 ahead of Fässler (R18 #1, 1'32''354) . Peugeot, Audi, Peugeot, Audi will be the first two rows of the grid for the six hours Imola, the fourth round of the 2011 ILMC which starts at noon tomorrow. "The competition continues between us", said Davidson. "It's always good to start from pole position but the race is not only long but also with traffic on the track, you have to survive. Our goal at the end of this round is to increase our lead in the rankings of the ILMC (Peugeot has 103 points against 69 to Audi) and starting from the front line will help."

By setting a 1'34''745, Guillaume Moreau took the OAK-Pescarolo-Judd to be the first qualified petrol car. In the LM P2 class, the fastest time was achieved by the Swiss Mathias Beche (Oreca-Nissan #46) with 1'37''208.

In the land of Ferrari, BMW dominated GTE Pro. Driving the #55 M3 GT, Jorg Müller set the fastest lap time (1'44''468) in a hotly contested qualifying session. Less than a second covered the first nine of GTE Pro. Two tenths of a second from his teammate and compatriot, Dirk Werner (BMW #56) ahead of a horde of  Ferrari 458 Italia, the fastest being that of Jaime Melo. Very comfortable with the free practice, Giancarlo Fisichella had to settle for sixth time in the category. "The car is very powerful," Müller enthused, "very easy to drive. It seems we have a small advantage going over the curbs. But the difference is minimal. "

In GTE Am, fastest was Patrick Long in the Porsche 911 RSR (997) #63 with 1'45''650. The first competitor in ILMC Marco Cioci (Ferrari F430 #61), second behind Long in GTE AM with 1'45''906.

Photo: Enzo and Dino Ferrari (Imola, Italy), 6 HOURS IMOLA, qualifying, Saturday, July 2, 2011. Anthony Davidson set Peugeot's second pole position of the ILMC season 2011.

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