San Luis: Young Driver AMR qualifying report

Young Driver AMR dominates qualifying in Argentina

Stefan Mucke and Jose Maria Lopez claim Pole-Position at San Luis

Young Driver AMR starts into the penultimate race of the GT1-World Championship in Argentina from the Pole-Position. Stefan Mucke (GER) and first time co-driver Jose Maria Lopez (ARE) dominated the Qualifying session in their Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9 and will start from Pole into Sunday's Qualifying Race. World Championship contenders Darren Turner (CZE) and Tomas Enge (CZE) had bad luck in qualifying and will start from 17th position in the Qualifying Race.

The former Formula 1-testdriver and local boy Jose Maria Lopez and Stefan Mucke dominated the thee-parted qualifying session at the picturesque track at San Luis. Lopez drove the first session, and when the session ended after 20 minutes, the Argentinean was quickest in his very first qualifying session for Young Driver. Mucke then drove Q2 and also toped the timing sheets after the session with his Aston Martin DBR9. In the final Q3, it was on Lopez again, and on his home track, he made a clean sweep and took the Pole Position. The Pole Position gives Young Driver AMR a perfect starting position in the battle of the team championship, were Young Driver AMR is currently second with only the Argentinean round to go.

For the championship contenders Darren Turner and Tomas Enge, things at San Luis are quite challenging. Turner, who is along team mate Tomas Enge the only driver who can still challenge the current championship leaders, finished in 17th position in the Q1 and briefly missed the next Q2 round. In tomorrow's 60-minute qualifying race, Turner/Enge have to battle now for good starting position for the champion race, the final round of the inaugural season of the GT1 World Championship.

Young Driver AMR will be supported at the final two rounds of the GT1 World Championship in Brazil and Argentina by Union Engineering (www.union.dk) and Zegg Watches & Jewellery (www.zegg.ch).

Driver quotes after Qualifying:

Stefan Mucke (#8 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9): "It's great to have Jose Maria in the team. He knows the track perfect and gave us all a lot of tips. We learned a lot from his laps in the free practise and could use this knowledge for Qualifying. I drove only a few laps in free practise and pre-qualifying, my fastest lap in Q2 was actually only my fifth timed lap this weekend. Before we came to San Luis, we didn't knew exactly what to expect, but we are a little bit surprised that everything went so well. The team prepared a perfect car and did a very good job, today our set-up was just perfect. Until now, it could not be better."

Jose Maria Lopez (#8 Young Driver AMR-Aston Martin DBR9): "It's fantastic to be on the Pole Position at my home track. The car was just great, it's really nice to drive and I didn't have any problems to adapt to it. Also Stefan did a great job today."

Darren Turner (#7 Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9): "My fastest lap was o.k., it didn't felt too bad. But it wasn't fast enough. The 40kg success ballast, which we have to carry around here after the victory and the second place last weekend at Argentina certainly didn't help us here. We also only used one set of tires, while most of our competitors used two sets in Q1.

Tomas Enge (#7 Young Driver-Aston Martin DBR9): "The day didn't start too bad, it went well in free practise and in pre qualifying. But we really had bad luck in qualifying. I'm afraid we underestimated the success ballast of 40kg a little bit on this track. The race will be hard, as we have to start from 17th position. Overtaking is not easy, as there is only one racing line and apart this line, the track is very dirty. But anything can happen during the race and we will certainly give our best to come as near to the Top-10 in the qualifying race as possible."

-source: young driver amr