Double Pole delight for TF Sport at Fuji WEC

With Qualifying for the second round of the World Endurance Championship having been completed earlier this morning (European time) a post session technical infringement for the then pace setting #57 Project Porsche has allowed the #90 TF Sport Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE to take a step up to claim their second pole position of this new season in GTE Am.

With all times across the GTE classes distinctly slower than last year, both GTE Pro and GTE Am entrants have displayed consistent lap times of between just seven tenths of a second on Pro and two seconds in Am and this all (in theory at least) gives rise to the prospect of as serious competitive six hour race around Fuji Speedway tomorrow.


With an exception during Free Practice 2 which was declared wet after a brief shower, all track running has so far been completed on a dry but warmer track than last year and it maybe a case of the teams being wary of early tyre degradation (like what the #95 AMR car suffered from at Silverstone) that has lead to all backing off just a little.  The leading GTE Pro Qualifying time of today was nearly two seconds down to Nick This and Marco Sorensen's pole time of last year!

This mornings results from Qualifying show the fastest AMR in Pro as this time being the #95 car of This and Sorensen who will start from P3 having been pipped by the #91 Porsche and #51 Ferrari by just 0.15 of a second off the front row. Team mates, and front running AMR at the last round at Silverstone (Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin) have to be content with a P5 start but still less than 0.5 seconds off the pole setting pace.


In GTE Am, like we say its good news for TF Sport again having claimed the same feat at Silverstone although todays results was with both Salih Yoluc and Jonny Adam at the wheel. This time they left their 'super silver' Charlie Eastwood in the garage much to the annoyance of David Heinemaier-Hannson no doubt as he does like to have a public moan about silvers!!

That leaves the #98 AMR podium winning car (at Silverstone) of Paul Dalla Lana, Ross Gunn (silver) and Darren Turner who qualified now P3 in class after the exclusion of the Project 1 car just 0.1 of second off the pace of the TF Sport Vantage. Lap times were again completed in this car by both Gunn and Dalla-Lana.


Tomorrows race will be a cracker - we haven't looked at any weather forecasts yet so that's always a big variable at Fuji. Track limits is obviously another major issue being enforced this weekend with eleven lap times being deleted by Race Control during GTE Qualifying alone.

Its going to be good!