Keating and TF Sport claim GTE Am Pole position at Spa WEC opener

Friday, April 30, 2021

This evening saw an incredible display of performance and incident as two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE cars locked out the front row of the GTE Am class ahead of tomorrow’s opening round of the 2021 World Endurance Championship from Spa Francorchamps.

Having all but destroyed one of their original chassis and seriously damaged another on the opening day of the events preceding Prologue Test earlier this week, TF Sport came up trumps with the #777 D’Station Racing car being rebuilt and the #33 car replaced with another chassis in time for them to take part in the test’s second and final day.

That effort from the team was rewarded in the only way possible earlier this evening with Ben Keating (who was at the wheel at the time of Mondays accident) secured class pole position by nearly a second from the #98 Northwest AMR Vantage GTE of Paul Dalla Lana who finished in P2.

Circulating around the classic 7km circuit in temperatures less than half of that from the Prologue Test, todays earlier GTE Qualifying session was interrupted twice with seperate accidents involving rivals in their class (fortunately no injuries but both cars were heavily damaged) before Keating, Dalla Lana and Satoshi Hoshino (and the remaining GTE field) had just six minutes to complete their ultimate Qualifying lap.

Despite Dalla Lana himself improving on his lap time on his final lap of the session, that was not enough to stop the American from posting purple sector times to claim his first pole in an Aston Martin.

For Hoshino however, the two breaks were enough to disrupt the flow of the Japanese Gentleman driver to have both flying lap times (after the two red flags) deleted for track limits meaning for them that they will have to start towards the rear of the grid for tomorrows six-hour race.