De Gerus Clinches Barcelona Pole in Tense Final Moment

Photo: Laurent Cartalade/MPS Agency

Reshad de Gerus beat reigning champion Esteban Masson to take the overall pole position for the 4 Hours of Barcelona in a qualifying session which came down to the final lap.

The No. 34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 Gibson sat at the top of the times for much of the LMP2 qualifying session until last year’s European Le Mans Series champion Esteban Masson set a faster lap in the final moments of the 15-minute session.

De Gerus responded with a 1:28.368 lap on his final run, clinching pole by just 0.189 seconds. The No. 34 Inter Europol car is the only car on the grid to have just two drivers, as Frenchman De Gerus shares his car with Bijoy Garg.

Masson and the No. 29 Forrestier Racing by Panis car will line up second for Sunday’s race, 0.077 seconds ahead of Tom Dillmann in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca.

Laurents Hörr finished the session in fourth in the No. 18 IDEC Sport entry, with former Formula E driver Jake Hughes lining up fifth on his sports car racing debut.

The Algarve Pro Racing driver set the fastest time at the pre-season Prologue earlier in the week and topped the timing screens in the opening practice session of the weekend

Duqueine Team’s Giorgio Roda blitzed the rest of the LMP2 Pro-Am field to take class pole with a margin of 0.940 seconds to the AO by TF Oreca of PJ Hyett, mirroring the front row from last year.

Roda set a lap of 1:30.332 in his No. 30 Oreca, an improvement of 0.778 seconds on his pole time in last year’s race.

Hyett finished the session in second ahead of John Falb in the Rosso Racing by Virage car and Jens Reno Møller in the No. 7 Vector Sport entry.

R-ace GP Takes Dominant LMP3 Pole; Al-Khelaifi on Top in LMGT3

In LMP3, Hugo Schwarze took a dominant pole position in the No. 85 R-ace GP car with a time of 1:36.524.

The German, driving the sole Duqueine D09 Toyota on the grid, was 0.507 seconds ahead of the No. 13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier JS P325 Toyota of Henry Cubides Olarte.

Daniel Nogales took third place in qualifying in his No. 8 Team Virage entry, while Lenny Ried completed the second row in the No. 31 Racing Spirit of Leman car.

Abdullah Ali Al-Khelaifi clinched the LMGT3 pole in the final seconds of the session, completing a 1:42.289 lap in his No. 62 Team Qatar by Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

American driver Blake McDonald was just 0.063 seconds slower in the sole Chevrolet Corvette ZO6 GT3.R in the field.

His No. 33 TF Sport-entered car had led most of the session, but McDonald was unable to improve on his final lap to retake pole from Al-Khelaifi.

The No. 75 Proton Competition Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Matthew Kurzejewski finished the session in third, with Clément Mateu fourth in the No. 59 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

Andrew Gilbert rounded out the top five in qualifying in his No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo.

The race is scheduled to start at 12 p.m. CET (6 a.m. EST) on Sunday with live and free coverage on the new WEC + platform.

RESULTS: Qualifying

Source: Sports Car 365