ELMS: Lancaster gives Greaves Silverstone pole

Jon Lancaster claimed pole position for the opening round of the European Le Mans Series at Silverstone.

The GP2 race winner moved to the top of the times in the Greaves Motorsport-run Gibson-Nissan 015S with six minutes remaining, relegating the Nissan-engined TDS Racing ORECA 05 of Tristan Gommendy to second place by six tenths of a second.

Lancaster's run to pole position was helped by main rival Harry Tincknell having a troubled session. Tincknell, who is part of the Nissan LMP1 squad but also contesting the full ELMS campaign with the Jota Sport Gibson team, had a trip through the gravel early in his run.

He salvaged second place, 0.46s off Lancaster, with a final-lap effort that gained him close to a second, which was good enough to allow him to jump up from fifth place. This relegated Gommendy to third, with Mikhail Aleshin taking fourth place in the AF Corse ORECA-Nissan 03.

Nathanael Berthon, who was fastest early in the session, was fifth fastest in the Murphy Prototypes ORECA 03R.

The new LMP3 category made its debut, with five examples of the Nissan-engined Ginetta participating in qualifying. Charlie Robertson, driving one of the two Team LNT-run cars alongside cycling legend Chris Hoy, claimed class pole in 12th place overall.

Robertson was 11s off the pole position time, and fractionally ahead of the leading GT cars as the quickest of the new machines.

Michael Simpson, in the sister LNT car, was second fastest ahead of the Lanaan Racing entry driven by Joey Foster.

Michele Rugolo won a closely fought battle for LM GTE pole position, the AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia bumped Klaas Bachler's Proton Porsche 911 RSR down to second by just 0.118s.

Alessandro Pier Guidi was third fastest in the AF Corse-run AT Racing Ferrari after outpacing Marc VDS BMW Z4 GTE driver Andy Priaulx by just two thousandths of a second.

In the GTC class for GT3-specification machinery, Franck Perera took a dominant pole position in the TDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3. He was just over a second faster than second-placed Marco Cioci in the AF Corse-run Ferrari.

Originally on Autosport.com