Dino Zamparelli led the Porsche Carrera Cup GB field in qualifying at Le Mans, narrowly missing out on the overall pole position by just sixteen thousandths of a second.
It was Frenchman Florian Latorre who secured the outright top spot in his Martinet by Almeras machine, but JTR’s Zamparelli and Redline Racing’s Dan Cammish were hot on his heels.
Carrera Cup GB championship leader Cammish was on the backfoot for qualifying after missing most of FP2 with front-end damage, the latest casualty of unforgiving track limit markers.
Another to miss FP2 with similar damage was Tom Wrigley, with a herculean effort by the In2 Racing team to repair his machine in the short gap between sessions coming up short.
The full twenty car CCGB field was out on track for qualifying though in the sweltering Le Mans sunshine – though one driver missing was Jamie Orton who withdrew prior to the meeting.
While Cammish and Charlie Eastwood have led the way so far this campaign, it was Zamparelli’s turn to set the pace around the legendary 8.46 mile circuit.
The Anglo-Italian set a quickest time of 4m 08.592s, though that was over five seconds down on the quickest times set during the series’ last visit in 2014, the by-product of added engine restrictors.
Cammish was three tenths further adrift in third overall, while Eastwood was a similar distance behind his Redline team-mate as he completed the GB top three in sixth overall.
The JTR and Redline squads would lock out the top seven positions, with Euan McKay an impressive fourth quickest ahead of Tio Ellinas, Lewis Plato and Tom Oliphant.
In Pro-AM 1, Greg Caton set the pace with G-Cat Racing on his first outing since the Brands Hatch season opener, finishing ninth of the GB runners and 23rd overall.
Alex Martin was half a second adrift in tenth, while Graeme Mundy completed the class top three in thirteenth of the GB runners, sitting behind Pro runners Dan McKay and Wrigley.
Mundy is one of only two drivers who have competed on the circuit before during the 2014 Carrera Cup race, with the other Peter Kyle-Henney leading the way in Pro-Am 2.
The race will take place at 09:15 GMT tomorrow morning, with live television coverage online at Eurosport, and online at www.porsche.co.uk/CarreraCupLeMansLive.
Full results from across the weekend can be found here: http://tsl-timing.com/file/?f=TOCA/2017/172403por.pdf
