Qualifying report
WEC
Aston Martin qualifies second in the Six Hours of Spa
The #97 V8 Vantage GTE Pro, piloted by Aston Martin Racing factory drivers Darren Turner and Stefan Mücke improved throughout the session as the track evolved lap-by-lap.
Edited: May 3, 2014, 6:50 AM
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Aston Martin Racing will start the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, from second and fifth place in GTE Pro class and seventh and eighth place in GTE Am.
The #97 V8 Vantage GTE Pro, piloted by Aston Martin Racing factory drivers Darren Turner (GB) and Stefan Mücke (DE) improved throughout the session as the track evolved lap-by-lap.
Stefan Mücke completed the first half of qualifying and after completing his two mandatory laps, with an average lap time of 2:33.856, the car was positioned third in the standings. After handing over to teammate Turner, improving conditions assisted the British driver in lowering the car’s average to 2:32.505 and improving their position to second.
Bruno Senna, who did not participate in the qualifying session, will join the experienced pairing for tomorrow’s race.
Following the qualifying session, Turner commented: “When the track is drying and you are on wets you need to cool the tyres down to get the most out of them. I therefore did a slow lap before attempting to record each of my qualifying laps. It worked and I managed to use the dry line to our advantage and leave the car in second place for the start of the race.”
Meanwhile, the #99 Craft-Bamboo Engineering car of Fernando Rees (BR), Alex Macdowall (GB) and Darryl O’Young (CH), who are participating in their second WEC race this weekend, enjoyed a promising qualifying session. They will start fifth on the grid tomorrow with a four lap average of 2:35.253.
Rees, who completed the first set of mandatory laps ahead of MacDowall, said: “We started the session under similar conditions to free practice one but the car felt much better, so we have made great progress. I managed two very good laps before handing over to Alex who did a really solid job. We are looking forward to starting the race.”
In the GTE Am class, cars #98 and #95 completed the qualifying session in seventh and eighth respectively.
John Gaw, Team Principal of Aston Martin Racing comments: “It was tricky conditions in qualifying today and smart choices on tyres by the engineers on the Pro cars helped us to achieve encouraging results in the changeable conditions.
"In the Am Vantage GTEs these choices were not available to the teams so we struggled to match our competitors. It's a long race tomorrow and we have had little time to find the balance in the cars in dry conditions so there is work to do for the engineers overnight to decide the best set up for race day."
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