Porsche flies through qualifying in Austin

Untouchable yesterday but mishandled this morning during the third free practice session, the Porsche 919 Hybrid flew through qualifying this afternoon. At the wheel of the No. 2, Nick Tandy and Neel Jani set an average time of 1'44"994, putting them 0"253 ahead of their teammates.

Le Toyota Gazoo Racing is unfortunately behind, since the best TS050 Hybrid is 1”659 behind the reference mark. This is number 8 entrusted during this session to Sébastien Buemi et Kazuki Nakajima. No. 7 is 2”3. Clearly, the Japanese are in difficulty in this second part of the season.

Signatech Alpine takes his second pole position in a row thanks to his duo Stone-negrao. Author of an average time of 1'54"024, the two men are ahead of Heinemeier Hansson-Beche's #0 Oreca 2 (Vaillante Rebellion) by 07"13 and Jarvis-Laurent's #0 by 3"38 (Jackie Chan DC Racing).

In GTE Pro, pole position went to the Ferrari 488 GTE n°71. Credited with an average time of 2'03"057, the Sam Bird-Davide Rigon duo took their third pole position of the season, the second in the row. The No. 67 Ford GT of Priaulx-Tincknell and theAston Martin n°95 from Sorensen-Thiim follow at 0 »199 and 0 »251 respectively. The top five is completed by the No. 51 Ferrari of Calado-Pier Guidi and the No. 66 Ford GT of Mücke-Pla. If the tire strategies are not known, the two Porsche 911 RSRs of Makowiecki-Lietz and Estre-Christensen concede more than a second to the reference brand.

Aston Martin takes pole position in GTE Am in 2'06"031. This is the fifth time in six races that the trio Dalla Lana-Lamy-Lauda has dominated qualifying this season. The Englishwoman did not go into detail since she relegated her closest pursuer, the No. 488 Ferrari 54 GTE of Flohr-Molina-Castellacci, to more than 1”2.

The start of the 6 Hours of the Circuit of the Americas, sixth round of WEC 2017, will be given tomorrow at 18 p.m. French time.