Two out of two in qualifying for Jota Sport at Imola

Championship leaders Jota Sport scored their second pole position in two races when Oliver Turvey lapped the 4.9km Imola circuit in 1m34.343 in the team’s Zytek-Nissan, nearly half a second ahead of 2012 Champions Thiriet by TDS Racing. Jota will now start the 3 Hours of Imola this afternoon at the head of the 28 car field.

The 20-minute qualifying session at Imola took place under blue skies with the nr1 Thiriet by TDS Racing Oreca-Nissan of Matthias Beche setting the early pace ahead of the nr34 Race Performance Oreca-Judd of Patric Niederhauser, the nr3 Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan of Tom Kimber-Smith and the Nissan powered nr36 Signatech Alpine of Nelson Panciatici.

Oliver Turvey made an appearance in the second half of the session and was soon on the pace, setting the fastest lap of the session with seven minutes remaining on the clock. He then lowered this time on the next three successive laps, with Beche the only driver to keep pace with the British driver.

The nr18 Murphy Prototypes Oreca Nissan of Brendon Hartley also challenged towards the end of qualifying and set the 3rd fastest lap in qualifying to start this afternoon’s race at the head of row two alongside the Signatech Alpine.

In the LMPC class the session belonged to Gary Hirsch in the nr 49 Team Endurance Challenge FLM Oreca as he stormed to the class pole, 2.5 seconds ahead of teammate Matthieu Lecuyer in the nr47 FLM Oreca. Lecuyer suffered an early set back, spinning twice on the opening lap of the session.

The 3 Hours of Imola will begin at 16:00 (local) this afternoon

European Le Mans Series