AMR well placed for Quali before the gun fight at the CoTA Coral
Friday, September 16, 2016
With just over three hours until Qualifying, Aston Martin Racing find themselves encouraged by their somewhat domineering showing in the three Free Practice sessions over the last two days.
Having received a negative Balance of Performance adjustment immediately prior to the event following on from their success at Mexico some, (including ourselves) may have thought the worst with a depreciation in power at a fast flowing circuit.
Despite an early scare with the #97 car of Darren Turner and Fernando Rees that warranted a precautionary engine replacement, performance figures from both the two Pro cars and the single Am car have been on the up with both the #95 and #98 topping the leader board in FP3 and FP2 respectively.
The only thing that isn't yet clear, and won't become clear until Qualifying or even the race is the relative performance of both turbo engined Ford GT and Ferrari 488 cars. Each showed initial pace of over a second ahead that of the fastest Aston only all of them to slowly wain over the next two sessions to follow both the AMR Pro cars at the end of this mornings session. Similar has occurred at previous rounds of the WEC before the Ford or Ferrari have come back with 'killer' performance later in the part of the event that matters - the race!
Over in GTE Am the #98 car of Paul Dalla-Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda have also been speedily improving with their Michelins performing well at a very hot circuit. They have spent the last three FP sessions trading times with the Labre Competition Corvette and the Abu-Dhabi Proton Porsche. The championship leading AF Corse Ferrari has been strangely quiet.
Qualifying is due 18:15Hrs local which is (unfortunately for us in continental Europe well past midnight. The race itself is also a late starter starting at slightly earlier 17:00Hrs local.
Photo credits - Aston Martin Racing