WEC - Rebellion and Aston Martin Secure Pole Position at Spa-Francorchamps

14.08.20

The no1 Rebellion Racing R13-Gibson continued to lead from the front and in the hands of Norman Nato and Gustavo Menezes took pole position for the Total 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, Round 6 of the 2019/20 FIA World Endurance Championship.

The American-French duo posted an average lap time of 1m59.577, with Menezes securing the fastest single lap of the session with a 1m59.342. The Rebellion crew finished 0.840 ahead of the no8 Toyota TS050-Hyrbid of Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley, with the Japanese driver the only other competitor to post a 1m59 lap time.  

The no7 Toyota was third 1.493s behind the pole time and the no4 Bykolles Racing Team Enso was fourth with a 2m01.907 average lap.

In LMGTE Pro the no92 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR-19 of reigning champions Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre looked to have secured the pole position for tomorrow’s race in Belgium but Estre had a lap deleted due to going beyond track limits and this handed the pole position to the no97 Aston Martin Racing Vantage of Belgium’s Maxime Martin and his British teammate Alex Lynn.

The two Aston Martin’s will fill the top two slots on the LMGTE Pro grid with the no95 Vantage of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen posting an average lap of 2m14.643, just 0.008s behind their teammates and 0.280s ahead of the no91 Porsche of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz.  The no71 AF Corse Ferrari was fourth fastest, just ahead of the no51 sister car, with the no92 Porsche back in 6th on the class grid for the race.

The LMP2 class pole was secured by the no22 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson of British duo Paul Di Resta and Phil Hanson after a 20 minute battle with several cars led by the no38 Jota Oreca of Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez and the no42 Cool Racing Oreca of Antonin Borga and Nico Lapierre.  

Di Resta and Hanson posted a 2m02.148, which was a massive 1.549 seconds ahead of the no38 Oreca, with the Cool racing machine nearly three tenths behind the Jota run car.

Porsche dominated the LMGTE Am qualifying with the German manufacturer taking the top three places on tomorrows grid.  The no77 Dempsey-Proton Racing 911 secured its first pole of the season in the hands of Matt Campbell and Christian Ried with an average time of 2m16.519, just 0.130s ahead of the no56 Team Project 1 Porsche of Egidio Perfetti and Matteo Cairoli, with the no57 Team Project 1 Porsche in third, half a second behind tehir teammates.

The Total 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps will take place at 13h30 on Saturday 15 August.