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Silverstone ELMS: Hanley takes pole for DragonSpeed

Ben Hanley drew first blood in the 2017 European Le Mans season, putting the #21 DragonSpeed car on pole for the 4 Hours of Silverstone.

#21 Dragonspeed, Oreca 07 - Gibson: Henrik Hedman, Nicolas Lapierre, Ben Hanley

#21 Dragonspeed, Oreca 07 - Gibson: Henrik Hedman, Nicolas Lapierre, Ben Hanley

JEP / Motorsport Images

#23 Panis Barthez Competition, Ligier JSP217 - Gibson: Fabien Barthez, Timothé Buret, Nathanael Berthon
#22 G-Drive Racing, Oreca 07 - Gibson: Memo Rojas, Ryo Hirakawa, Leo Roussel
#47 Cetilar Villorba Corse, Dallara P217 - Gibson: Roberto Lacorte, Giorgio Sernagiotto, Andrea Belicchi
#29 Racing Team Nederland, Dallara P217 - Gibson: Jan Lammers, Frits Van Eerd
#25 Algarve Pro Racing, Ligier JSP217 - Gibson: Andrea Roda, Matt McMurry, Andrea Pizzitola
#6 360 Racing, Ligier JS P3 - Nissan: Terrence Woodward, Ross Kaiser, Tony Wells
#66 JMW Motorsport, Ferrari F458 Italia: Robert Smith, Rory Butcher, Jody Fannin
#3 United Autosports, Ligier JS P3 - Nissan: Mark Patterson, Wayne Boyd, Christian England
#47 Cetilar Villorba Corse, Dallara P217 - Gibson: Roberto Lacorte, Giorgio Sernagiotto, Andrea Belicchi

The Oreca driver punched in a 1m 44.040s towards the end of the session, beating the #32 United Autosports Ligier of Filipe Albuquerque by 0.274s.

Albuquerque was nearly a second clear of third-placed Enzo Guibbert, piloting the #39 Graff Oreca, which starts ahead of the #22 G-Drive Oreca as Ryo Hirakawa managed fourth.

The #25 Algarve Pro Racing Ligier qualified fifth ahead of the #34 Tockwith Motorsport entry, while Anders Fjordbach was the fastest of the Dallara runners, taking his #49 High Class machine to seventh. 

The #23 Panis-Barthez car, the #28 IDEC Sport and the #29 Racing Team Nederland entry will also begin Sunday’s race in the top 10.

The session was red-flagged at the midpoint after Richard Bradley beached his #40 Graff at Becketts, just moments after Hirakawa made an off-track excursion in the same complex.

The #40 car will start from 28th place, right in between the LMP3 and GTE classes.

Jensen claims last-minute LMP3 pole

Mikkel Jensen put in a last-ditch lap of 1m 53.665s to take AT Racing’s first LMP3 pole in ELMS.

The #9 Ligier JS P3 pipped the #2 United Autosports car of Sean Rayhall to the top spot on his last lap of the session; Rayhall will start ahead of the #3 United Autosports, with the 2016 class winners enjoying a relatively strong session.

Yann Ehrlacher was the fastest of the two Normas, taking his #19 M.Racing car to sixth place, behind the #16 Panis-Barthez and the #18 M.Racing Ligiers.

TF Sport beats Beechdean to GTE pole 

In the first qualifying session for the GTE class, Nicki Thiim claimed the fastest time in the #90 TF Sport Aston Martin, despite having a time deleted for exceeding track limits.

Thiim headed fellow Aston Martin squad Beechdean, which took second courtesy of Ross Gunn,  0.197s.

Matt Griffin was the fastest of the Ferrari runners, taking his AF Corse-run #55 Spirit of Race 458 to third ahead of the #77 Proton Porsche of Matteo Cairoli. 

The two other Ferraris brought up the rear of the class, with the #51 car beating the #66 by just under 0.4s.

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Edition

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