Paul-Loup Chatin offers pole to IDEC Sport in Barcelona

IDEC Sport will start in pole position at the end of the afternoon (18:30 p.m.) in Barcelona in Catalonia, for the 4 Hours counting for theELMS, after the nice work of Paul-Loup Chatin during the qualifying session.

The Frenchman placed the No. 07 Oreca 28 in the lead, completing a benchmark lap in 1'32″765, almost six tenths ahead Nicolas lapierre (Oreca 07 n°37 – Cool Racing). This is the first pole in 2019 for IDEC Sport, the Chatin – Rojas – Lafargue crew returning with the bonus point one point behind the leaders Nato – Rusinov – van Uitert overall.

Nicolas Lapierre, despite a spin during the session at the exit of the last chicane, for his part offers a front row to Cool Racing with whom he will compete in the WEC 2019-2020.

Jean-Eric Vergne places the No. 01 Aurus 26 – G-Drive Racing in third position, more than eight tenths behind. The double champion Formula E stopped at the side of the track, exiting the pit lane, just after crossing the finish line.

Arjun Maini (Oreca 07 n°43 – RLR Msport) and Jonathan Hirschi (Oreca 07 n°39 – Graff Racing) complete the top 5.

The session was neutralized by a red flag after Nico Jamin (Oreca 07 n°30 – Duqueine Engineering) went off the track when braking for the first corner. The prototype from the Gard team was evacuated from the gravel trap before returning to the pits.

Red flag! The No.30 @Team_Duqueine had a huge spin at T1 #ELMS | #4HBARCELONA pic.twitter.com/83Dpvavoci

— ELMSeries_Official (@EuropeanLMS) July 20, 2019

Jamin, however, signs the sixth reference of the session ahead of Ben Hanley (Oreca 07 n°21 – DragonSpeed). Followed by the Dallara P217 n°45 – Carlin of Harry Tincknell and the first Ligier JS P217 n°23 – Panis-Barthez Compétition of Will Stevens.

Dominators since the start of the weekend, Eurointernational and the no.3 Ligier JS P11 of Mikkel Jensen – Jens Petersen confirmed in the LM P3 category, Jensen setting the best time in 1'40″187, 0″184 ahead of the Fioravanti trio – Grinbergas – Bontempelli (Norma M30 n°10 – Oregon Team).

It is also the first pole for the championship leaders this season. With a final lap in 1'40″625, Mathieu Lahaye places the No. 30 Norma M17 – Ultimate on the second row alongside the No. 30 – M Racing Norma M19 of Yann Ehrlacher.

In GTE, Kessel Racing, thanks to Andrea Piccini (Ferrari 488 GTE n°60) will start on pole, the Italian having achieved the best time in 1'43″084.

The event will be followed live on video on our website, from 18:30 p.m.