The 2018 Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen will see an all-LMP2 front row after a fantastic qualifying battle saw Colin Braun’s No.54 Core autosport ORECA 07 Gibson take a first-ever overall pole position for the team, his best lap of 1m32.350s pipping the No.32 United Autosports Ligier JS P217 Gibson of Paul Di Resta by just six thousandths of a second.
Di Resta led the session until the last five minutes and had a chance to beat the ORECA’s time until a lock-up in the final sector ruined the ex-Formula 1 and current DTM star’s final shot.
“We tested here and that shows,” Braun said immediately after the session. “We still have a lot of work to do to understand the car, and testing can be a major plus — with the new car we have only tested here, at Daytona and at Sebring and we’ve, so far, had good results at all those tracks.
Image by Levitt/LAT
“We are confident in our race set-up and pace, we worked hard on that yesterday and I hope we can show well against the DPis.
“They have had the balance tipped their way in recent races but here, the track layout means we can put a fast lap together. We still need to be sharp in traffic tomorrow, the DPis have a torque advantage that could play a part there.”
Row two was an all-Acura affair, with Ricky Taylor a quarter of a second back from the LMP2 pair in the No.7 ARX-05 DPi, a tenth and a half clear of the team’s No.6 car in the hands of Dane Cameron.
Simon Trummer followed up his impressive speed in the final practice this morning by qualifying fifth fastest, pipping the faster of the two ESM Ligier Nissan DPis — although Pipo Derani stopped the No.22 course in the second half of the session.
The damaged No.77 Mazda RT-24P DPi, which collided with the No. 73 Park Place Porsche in the third practice, did not make the session but is set to race tomorrow as the team set about repairing the car following Rene Rast’s dramatic accident this morning. The damage was restricted to bodywork and suspension.
Comments