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WEC Spa: Ferrari beats Porsche to pole, top Toyota in seventh

Fuoco took the top spot by almost exactly half a second at the wheel of the #50 Ferarri 499P Le Mans Hypercar in the 12-minute Hyperpole session for the fastest 10 cars in the first round of qualifying. 

The Italian’s 2m02.600s lap of the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps pushed Porsche driver Matt Campbell down to second. 

Campbell hung onto a spot on the front row of Saturday’s Spa 6 Hours with a 2m03.107s in his Porsche 963 LMDh despite a late improvement from the Ganassi-run Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh in the hands of Alex Lynn. 

The Briton ended up just eight hundredths shy of the Porsche with a 2m03.115s. 

Porsches took position four to six on the grid, the privateer 963s from Proton Competition and Jota edging out the second factory Porsche Penske Motorsport entry. 

Julien Andlauer’s 2m03.314s in the Proton car gave him a margin of seven hundredths over Callum Ilott’s 2m03.384s in the best of Jota cars, with Kevin Estre in the works entry a further six hundredths in arrears on 2m03.448s. 

Brendon Hartley took seventh in the only Toyota GR010 HYBRID LMH to make it through to Hyperpole. 

Charles Milesi took eighth in the #35 Alpine A424 LMDh, while Robert Kubica and Robin Frijns rounded out the top 10 in their respective Ferrari and BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh Hypercar class entries. 

The top 13 cars in the first round of qualifying lasting 15 minutes were covered by less than a second. 

Among the casualties from the opening period was Le Mans 24 Hours winner James Calado in the #51 Ferrari. 

He trailed team-mate Fuoco by half a second on the way to 11th position, leaving him one place shy of a place in Hyperpole. 

Bovy puts Iron Dames Lamborghini on LMGT3 pole

#85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan LMGT3 Evo2: Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting (Photo by: Marco Losi / KAPPAEMEDIA)

Sarah Bovy took her first LMGT3 pole position of the season for the Iron Dames squad. 

She posted two laps good enough for pole aboard the Iron Lynx-run Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, her best of 2m20.755s giving her a margin of four tenths over United Autosports McLaren driver Josh Caygill.

The Briton got down to a 2m21.092s aboard his McLaren 720S GT3 Evo to end up just four hundredths up on Ahmad Al Harthy in the fastest of the WRT BMW M4 GT3s. 

Yasser Shahin took fourth for the Manthey EMA Porsche squad ahead of James Cottingham and Ian James in their respective United Autosports McLaren and Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 entries. 

The 12-minute Hyperpole session for the LMGT3 cars was interrupted when Aliaksandr Malykhin crashed heavily at Raidillon in the Manthey PureRxcing Porsche.

The Belarusian lost the 911 RSR in the right-hander at the fast sequence and hit the barriers backwards. 

The British-based driver managed to get out of the car unaided before his transfer to the circuit medical centre. 

David Leung, part of the winning WRT BMW line-up last time out at Imola, failed to make it through to the Hyperpole session, the Briton ending up 13th in the times.  

The Spa 6 Hours, round three of the 2024 WEC, starts at 13:00 local time on Saturday. 

WEC Spa - Hypercar Q2 results:

   
1
 - 
4
   
   
1
 - 
2
   
Cla Team # Drivers Car Laps Time Interval km/h
1
FERRARI AF CORSE HYPERCAR
50 Italy A. Fuoco Spain M. Molina Denmark N. Nielsen Ferrari 499P 4

2'02.600

  205.663
2
PORSCHE PENSKE MOTORSPORT HYPERCAR
5 Australia M. Campbell Denmark M. Christensen France F. Makowiecki Porsche 963 4

+0.507

2'03.107

0.507 204.816
3
CADILLAC RACING HYPERCAR
2 New Zealand E. Bamber United Kingdom A. Lynn Cadillac V-Series.R 5

+0.515

2'03.115

0.008 204.803
4
Proton Competition HYPERCAR
99 Switzerland N. Jani France J. Andlauer Porsche 963 5

+0.714

2'03.314

0.199 204.473
5
HERTZ TEAM JOTA HYPERCAR
12 United Kingdom W. Stevens United Kingdom C. Ilott Porsche 963 5

+0.784

2'03.384

0.070 204.357
6
PORSCHE PENSKE MOTORSPORT HYPERCAR
6 France K. Estre Germany A. Lotterer Belgium L. Vanthoor Porsche 963 6

+0.848

2'03.448

0.064 204.251
7
Toyota Racing HYPERCAR
8 Switzerland S. Buemi New Zealand B. Hartley Japan R. Hirakawa Toyota GR010 - Hybrid 4

+0.972

2'03.572

0.124 204.046
8
Alpine Endurance Team HYPERCAR
35 France P. Chatin France J. Gounon France C. Milesi Alpine A424 4

+1.085

2'03.685

0.113 203.859
9
AF Corse HYPERCAR
83 Poland R. Kubica Israel R. Shwartzman China Y. Yifei Ferrari 499P 4

+1.448

2'04.048

0.363 203.263
10
BMW M Team WRT HYPERCAR
20 South Africa S. Van Der Linde Netherlands R. Frijns Germany R. Rast BMW M Hybrid V8 5

+1.462

2'04.062

0.014 203.240

LMGT3 Q2 results:

   
1
 - 
4
   
   
1
 - 
2
   
Cla Team # Drivers Car Laps Time Interval km/h
1
IRON DAMES LMGT3
85 Belgium S. Bovy Switzerland R. Frey Denmark M. Gatting Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 5

2'20.755

  179.136
2
United Autosports LMGT3
95 United Kingdom J. Caygill Chile N. Pino Japan M. Sato McLaren 720S GT3 Evo 6

+0.337

2'21.092

0.337 178.708
3
TEAM WRT LMGT3
46 United Kingdom A. Al Harthy Italy V. Rossi Belgium M. Martin BMW M4 GT3 5

+0.383

2'21.138

0.046 178.650
4
Manthey EMA LMGT3
91
Y. Shahin
M. Schuring
Austria R. Lietz
Porsche 911 GT3 R 5

+0.530

2'21.285

0.147 178.464
5
United Autosports LMGT3
59 J. Cottingham N. Costa Switzerland G. Saucy McLaren 720S GT3 Evo 6

+0.538

2'21.293

0.008 178.454
6
Heart of Racing Team LMGT3
27 United Kingdom I. James Italy D. Mancinelli Spain A. Riberas Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 5

+0.595

2'21.350

0.057 178.382
7
Vista AF Corse LMGT3
54 Switzerland T. Flohr Italy F. Castellacci Italy D. Rigon Ferrari 296 GT3 6

+0.828

2'21.583

0.233 178.089
8
TF Sport LMGT3
81 Belgium T. Van Rompuy Portugal R. Andrade Ireland C. Eastwood Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R 5

+1.460

2'22.215

0.632 177.297
9
AKKODIS ASP Team LMGT3
78
A. Robin
Russian Federation T. Boguslavskiy Japan R. Miyata
Lexus RC F GT3 2

 

   
10
Manthey PureRxcing LMGT3
92
A. Malykhin
J. Sturm
Austria K. Bachler
Porsche 911 GT3 R 1

 

   
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