Paul Loup Chatin secured the second ELMS pole of the 2018 season for IDEC Sport for tonight’s 4 Hours of the Red Bull Ring. The 2015 ELMS Champion took the top spot with a 1m19.246 on his last flying lap to finish ahead by from the no29 Duqueine Engineering Oreca of Nicolas Jamin and Norman Nato in the no24 Racing Engineering Oreca-Gibson by just 0.019s . The top five cars separated by just three tenths of a second and the top eleven by less than one second.
In LMP3, Mikkel Jensen looked to have secured the category pole in the no9 AT Racing Ligier-Nissan at the chequered flag. Jensen posted a 1m26.408 lap, 0.111s ahead of Mathieu Lahaye in the no17 Ultimate Norma-Nissan, with the no19 M.Racing-YMR Norma of 17-year-old Lucas Légéret in third, just 0.175 from pole. However Jensen was judged to have exceeded track limits during his fastest lap and the time was removed, dropping the Dane to 6th place and promoting the no17 Ultimate Norma to pole.
Like the LMP2 category, the competition in the LMP3 class is very tight with the top ten cars covered by just 0.8 seconds.
Reigning LMGTE Champions JMW Motorsport will start from the front row of the class grid in the ELMS for the first time since Hungary in 2013 thanks to a 1m28.827 lap set by Miguel Molina in the British teams Ferrari F488 GTE. The Spanish driver’s time was just 0.098s faster than Matteo Cairoli in the no88 Proton Competition Porsche and 0.140s ahead of Andrea Bertolini in the no83 Krohn Racing Ferrari.
The 4 Hours of Red Bull Ring will take place Sunday 22 July, with the race due to start at 12h00 that’s 7PM Australian EST.
