WEC Spa: Peugeot beats Cadillac for maiden pole as Toyota and Ferrari wrestle

Malthe Jakobsen claimed Peugeot’s first-ever World Endurance Championship pole place after topping Friday’s qualifying session for the Spa 6 Hours.

Regardless of spinning at Raidillon on his outlap at first of Q1 and flat-spotting his tyres, Jakobsen rebounded strongly within the #94 Peugeot 9X8 to edge out the #12 Jota Cadillac V-Sequence.R by simply 0.043s.

Alpine had led a lot of the two-part qualifying on the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, with Charles Milesi setting the quickest time in Q1 earlier than setting a brand new benchmark of 2m00.731s within the pole-deciding session.

Nevertheless, Peugeot driver Jakobsen eclipsed Milesi’s time within the last minutes and managed to stay in entrance of Stevens, who set a purple time in sector 1 however was unable to keep up that tempo by the remainder of the lap on worn tyres.

It was a landmark consequence for the French producer, which had beforehand secured only one entrance row begin for the reason that begin of the 9X8 programme in mid-2022.

Stevens held on to second in one of the best of the Cadillac LMDh prototypes, three spots forward of Jack Aitken within the sister #38 automobile.

Alpine locked out the second row of the grid after Jules Gounon put the #36 A424 in fourth, behind the sister #35 automobile pushed by Milesi.

The 2 Coronary heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie LMHs ending up sixth and seventh, behind the #38 Cadillac. Marco Sorensen, who knocked out the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Sheldon van der Linde with a last-gasp effort in Q1, was the sooner of the 2 within the #009 Aston.

Solely a single Ferrari made it to Q2, with Antonio Fuoco ending up a distant eighth within the #50 Ferrari 499P. He was adopted by the #93 Peugeot 9X8 of Stoffel Vandoorne and the #15 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor.

Toyota endured a troublesome qualifying session at Spa after successful final month’s Imola season-opener. Group principal/driver Kamui Kobayashi completed twelfth quickest within the #07 GR010 Hybrid, three hundredths off the Q2 cut-off time, whereas Brendon Hartley ended up second-last within the #8 automobile, solely forward of the #17 Genesis GMR-001.

Two of the three Ferrari LMHs had been additionally knocked out within the opening leg of qualifying. Robert Kubica pulled into the pits with two minutes remaining, ending up thirteenth within the AF Corse-run #83 499P, whereas Antonio Giovinazzi completed additional again in fifteenth after struggling a serious slide on his last flying lap.

The 2 Ferraris had been separated by Mathieu Jaminet in one of the best of the 2 Genesis LMDh automobiles.

Lexus tops LMGT3 qualifying

#78 Akkodis Asp Group Lexus RC F LMGT3: Tom Van Rompuy, Hadrien David, Esteban Masson

Picture by: Paul Foster

Lexus beat Aston Martin to pole place within the LMGT3 qualifying, with 22-year-old Hadrien David setting the quickest time in Hyperpole.

After Razvan Umbrarescu topped the opening qualifying for bronze drivers within the #87 ASP Lexus RC F GT3, David put the sister #78 entry on prime within the pole-deciding session.

The Frenchman set a finest time of 2m16.612s with simply minutes to go in qualifying, beating the #27 Coronary heart of Coronary heart Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Zacharie Robichon by just below two tenths of a second.

Ben Tuck put the #77 Proton Ford Mustang GT3 in third place, forward of the opposite Lexus certified by Clemens Schmid.

Giammarco Levorato rounded off a powerful day for Ford with the fifth-fastest time within the #88 Mustang, whereas Simon Mann certified sixth in one of the best of the AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3s.

BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and Corvette all managed to get one automobile into the second leg of qualifying and accomplished the highest 10.

Neither of the 2 Storage 59 McLaren 720S GT3s progressed into Q2, whereas the Imola class-winning #69 WRT BMW M4 GT3 additionally ended up off the tempo, leaving it on the ultimate row of the grid.

The Spa 6 Hours, which serves because the unofficial gown rehearsal for the Le Mans 24 Hours, begins at 14:00 native time on Saturday. 

Hypercar outcomes (High 10 solely)

1

PEUGEOT TOTALENERGIES HYPERCAR

94

Peugeot 9X8
0

 
208.982

2

Cadillac Hertz Group JOTA HYPERCAR

12

Cadillac V-Sequence.R
0

0.043
208.908

3

Alpine Endurance Group HYPERCAR

35

Alpine A424
0

0.035
208.847

4

Alpine Endurance Group HYPERCAR

36

Alpine A424
0

0.107
208.662

5

Cadillac Hertz Group JOTA HYPERCAR

38

Cadillac V-Sequence.R
0

0.102
208.486

6

Aston Martin THOR Group HYPERCAR

009

Aston Martin Valkyrie
0

0.073
208.361

7

Aston Martin THOR Group HYPERCAR

007

Aston Martin Valkyrie
0

0.039
208.293

8

FERRARI AF CORSE HYPERCAR

50

Ferrari 499P
0

0.065
208.182

9

PEUGEOT TOTALENERGIES HYPERCAR

93

Peugeot 9X8
0

0.081
208.043

10

BMW M Group WRT HYPERCAR

15

BMW M Hybrid V8
0

0.119
207.838

LMGT3 outcomes (High 10 solely)

1

AKKODIS ASP Group LMGT3

78

H. David

E. Masson

Lexus RC F GT3
0

 
184.569

2

Coronary heart of Racing Group LMGT3

27

Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3
0

0.194
184.307

3

77

S. Priaulx

Ford Mustang GT3
0

0.018
184.283

4

AKKODIS ASP Group LMGT3

87

R. Umbrarescu

Lexus RC F GT3
0

0.144
184.089

5

88

Ford Mustang GT3
0

0.069
183.997

6

Vista AF Corse LMGT3

21

Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo
0

0.226
183.694

7

TEAM WRT LMGT3

32

BMW M4 GT3 Evo
0

0.093
183.569

8

IRON LYNX LMGT3

61

Mercedes AMG GT3
0

0.176
183.334

9

Manthey DK Engineering LMGT3

91

J. Cottingham

Porsche 911 GT3 R
0

0.534
182.625

10

Racing Group Turkey by TF LMGT3

34

P. Dempsey

Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R
0

0.267
182.273

 

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