The first part of the qualifying traditionally belonged to the GT cars. We had only two candidates for the GT pole despite the best GT2 cars were only three second off the pace compared to GT1. Saleen of Larbre Competition continued its dominance over the Alphand Corvette but both cars were about a second slower than during their best practice session. Even the GT2 cars were slightly slower, namely the Bell/Bruni JMW car slowed from morning's 1:57.289 to 1:58.436 in qualifying and lost their lead in the class. It was taken by Allan Simonsen/Pierre Kaffer from Farnbacher's team in 1:57.982 ahead of Ferrari of Team Modena, which was by the way active last year in GT1 with an Aston Martin. The third belongs to the best Porsche of Lietz/Lieb/Felbermayr ahead of that mentioned slowed JMW car. IMSA Perfomance Porsche was next and the sixth position belongs to the best non-Porsche/Ferrari entry - the well running Spyker of Coronel and Janiš. All remaining cars qualified well too, the last one being Ferrari of Maurice Basso/Roberto Plati/Giampaolo Tenchini run by Easyrace team classified just behind the gentleman Felbermayr-Proton entry.
The second part of the qualifying for prototypes followed soon. We used to put ourselves a question whether the Lavaggi LS1 has those three lights for signalising top 3 class position working at all or not, since it was unlikely to feature among the top 3. But this time we got an answer: yes, it works. The Lavaggi was the first LMP1 out among many other LMP2s, so it ran with one light switched on for many laps, we think much longer than it should, but generally the light system worked better than we had seen before, especially during Friday's sessions in Spa or sometimes last year. One thing we regret that the are no boards for spectators that would show provisional positions during the practice sessions and, of course, also during the race.
Back to the qualifying. Pescarolo was the first top car out but despite trying hard and running more laps than any other car from the top, the team could not do better than fifth on the grid. Aston Martin were waiting until later in the session but when they went out they proved to be very quick and unlike GTs, they improved their practice times by almost two seconds. Mücke in number 007 set the pole time closely followed by Turner in 009. Lola Aston Martin dominance was strengthened by the private Speedy entry which outqualified both, the Pescarolo and the quick Ginetta-Zytek in hands of Dany Watts. Signature Plus had another nice sessions, ending up in top 6, while the performance of Audis proved to be disappointing after some bright moments in the free sessions.
Zyteks ones again topped the LMP2 result sheets. Olivier Pla in the ASM Team car was once again even quicker than the third factory Aston Martin, the performance of which is generally a disappointment. This car is running under Czech AMR Eastern Europa banner, it is the second Charouz chasssis from 2008 clothed in DBR1-2 Aston Martin body and was used already in Le Mans and Catalunya. The chassis should not be that bad since in Catalunya it was faster of the two factory cars but in hands of Miguel Ramos/Stuart Hall/Chris Buncombe (Ramos actually qualified it) it is only struggling.
The best non-Zytek LMP2 car was the Speedy Sebah Lola Coupe. But the car crashed heavily later in the session. Damage that looked rather bad at first view and not that serious after another view should be repaired for tomorrow's race. As we visited the pit of the team, the rear suspension was already replaced and the car looked very well. Even other LMP2 positions were similar as in practice sessions, i.e. trio of Lola Coupes behind those quick Ginetta-Zyteks (in fact the G.A.C. Racing car is pure Zytek - chassis 03, Ginetta name was added from chassis 04), then fastest Pescarolo-Mazda, remaining Lola Coupe and improving WR. The rest of the field is made by Radical, gentleman Pescarolo-Mazda, Italian Lucchini, which qualified ahead of two old original Courages. By the way, the Lavaggi would be gridded between them.
Everything is set up for an interesting race tomorrow. Our prediction from weeks before the race was that it should be a battle between the three Aston Martins and the single Pescarolo. Now it seems to be reduced to just two Astons against one Pescaralo but everything may change in the first turn colission, or some of the teams, like Speedy Lola or Strakka Racing Ginetta may surprise us and keep at the front for more than just a few hours or even less.
