Qualifying and Hyperpole has now been determined within this weekend’s penultimate and rescheduled round of the FIA World Endurance Championship from the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain, sessions that have left the Heart of Racing team with something of an uphill battle upon their hands during tomorrows race.
Last time out in Japan had seen both Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercars circulated within the top ten in class on both pace and strategy before ultimately an error from the #007 car of Tom Gamble and Harry Tincknell cost them a late drive through penalty whilst the #009 car of Alex Riberas and Marco Sorensen became victim to an untimely Safety Car.
That left the cars finishing well down the order to what they perhaps should have been but despite a P2 finish during the earlier Free Practice 2 session for the #009 car, both crews appear to be struggling with the package that they have available to them this weekend and that was reflected during Qualifying when both cars failed to progress through to Hyperpole for the first time in several races. The #009 will lead the way in tomorrow’s six-hour race for the team in P11 whilst the #007 car will be starting just one place back within the seventeen strong class.
Sadly for the team, it was a similar tail for their two Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3 powered crews as the #27 car of Ian James and Zaharie Robichon had to come to terms with their now 42kg of success ballast around a circuit where their third man and Pro driver (Mattia Drudi) will not be arriving until the early hours of tomorrow morning thanks to his GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup racing commitments tonight in Portimao.
Whilst this class’s two earlier Free Practice sessions had come through warming sunshine, this morning’s final session before Qualifying was ran through mirky and misty track conditions with a high humidity level against a much cooler track surface.
The #23 car of Gray Newell, Eduardo Barrichello and Jonny Adam had no handicap of any success ballast thanks to their unfortunate and bizarre DNF last time out in Japan, their lap times during qualifying were significantly quicker than their sister car but both cars would pit for tyres during their own Qualifying round looking for that additional pace.
That left the #23 of Newell best placed in class at P14 and just 1.4 seconds off the then fastest lap in class whilst the #27 of James almost appeared to have ‘accepted’ its fate with a lowly qualifying run down in P18 of an eighteen strong class – some seven seconds off the lead pace at the time whilst still having adjustments made to the car during the session too. Maybe tyre strategy was already coming into play just in case the race was ran upon a dry but very abrasive track surface.
We all know and realise that Qualifying is just where you start with where you actually finish being a totally different thing but with rain apparently very much in peoples mind for tomorrows race, the running order will change many times over during that six hours.
Whilst the #007, #009 and #23 cars have no remaining championship winning potential this season, the #27 crew do still sit effectively second within the LMGT3 class albeit fourth in the order as each of the three drivers of the leading Corvette are on a differing points tally to one another as two have each skipped different rounds of the season. What the #27 will still need to do however is to convincingly outscore the #33 TF Sport prepared entry by the end of the race tomorrow in order to take the chase to the final round at Monza in a few weeks’ time.
Photo credits – DPPI
