24h Spa: Two Swiss cars on row 1
POLE FOR R-MOTORSPORT After the disqualification of the fastest Audi, the Aston Martin of R-Motorsport from St. Gallen moves up to pole position for the Spa 24 Hours. In addition, the Audi qualified by Nico Müller will start from the front row. The starting position could not be much more exciting from a Swiss perspective. The Aston Martin Vantage V12 from [...]
The starting position could not be much more exciting from a Swiss perspective. R-Motorsport's Aston Martin Vantage V12, with which Belgian Maxime Martin set the second-fastest time in Super Pole qualifying on Friday evening, will tackle the 70th Spa 24 Hours from pole position at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
The superior best time in this individual time trial over two laps had been set by the Audi R8 driven by the young Belgian Dries Vanthoor. However, the number 1 car will be relegated to the tenth row of the grid due to a technical infringement.
Second pole position for R-Motorsport
This is another milestone for the still young Aston Martin St. Gallen team in its first outing at Spa. In May at Silverstone, the other car celebrated victory in just the second race of the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup.
Back in June, one of the V12 sports cars entered by the British teams Arden and Jota for R-Motorsport tackled the 1000-km race at Paul Ricard from the best starting position. Unfortunately, both cars retired there with an identical defect in the front suspension as a result of a material fault.
For Nico Müller, the improved starting position changes nothing
Nico Müller took the unsurprising news of his teammate Vanthoor's slashed times with one eye crying and one eye laughing.
Müller himself had set the third-best qualifying time in the second top-seeded WRT Audi and now moves up to the front row of the grid alongside the Aston Martin.
Nico Müller: "On the one hand, the demotion of number 1 is a shame for Audi, but on the other hand we're now moving up to the front row. Whether we start second or third - this doesn't change anything for our race. The important thing is that our car continues to run as well as before."
DTM champion René Rast has been nominated as the starting driver, Müller is the second replacement.
Jeffrey Schmidt from Basel and the South Africans Kelvin and Sheldon van der Linde also have a good starting position with their Audi R8 from Land Motorsport.
The cars of Rolf Ineichen (Lamborghini) and Edoardo Mortara (Mercedes) start from row 7, the third WRT Audi with Marcel Fässler from row 8.
Emil Frey Racing in midfield
Of the two Lexus RC F GT3 cars fielded by Emil Frey Racing, Albert Costa, Christian Klien and Marco Seefried qualified for the super pole of the top 20, taking up the race from the ninth row of the grid, with their teammates Norbert Siedler, Stéphane Ortelli and Markus Palttala starting from row 13.
In between, Alex Fontana, Adrian Zaugg and Mikael Grenier placed the Emil Frey Jaguar as the fastest team in the Silver Cup for row 12. Fontana/Grenier are second in their championship, as are Paul Ricard winners Costa/Klien/Seefried in the main field of Endurance Pro teams.
In the classification for cars with drivers without Gold or Platinum status, Philipp Frommenwiler and Nikolaj Rogivue with an Audi R8 LMS from Aust Motorsport also fancy their chances of a podium. They start on row 19, but will not be able to catch the Safenwil cat on their own.
Adrian Amstutz (Lamborghini) and Philippe Giauque (Mercedes), together with their teammates (four drivers per car), are hoping for a podium finish in the Am category for fast gentleman drivers.
All the way to the front and all the way to the back
The catch-up race of the day is expected from R-Motorsport's second Aston Martin. In an unfortunate situation, Jake Dennis damaged the Vantage's oil cooler on a competitor braking brusquely in front of him during practice. Because the regulations did not allow this to be replaced for qualifying, this car was left without time and has to line up at the very back of the grid.
The race will start at 4:30 p.m. The race can be followed in the live stream on the Blancpain GT Series YouTube channel and in phases on Eurosport 1 or 2.
