Matteo Malucelli has gained a second pole of the season as the returning Rebellion Racing team took the final LMP1 pole on offer from qualifying for the 16th Annual Petit Le Mans, the final race of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS).
Driven by soon to be Porsche driver Neel Jani, the Rebellion Lola-Toyota stopped Muscle Milk Pickett Racing‘s domination in the top category of ALMS racing. Setting a time of 1:09.254, the Swiss driver was more than a second faster than Lucas Luhr in the HPD.
Not having any luck at all were both the Dyson Lola-Mazda and the Deltawing. Dyson in the Lola set a time of 1:14.978 and Andy Meyrick in the Deltawing set a 1:16.206, both slower than the entire P2 field with Meyrick slower also than the entire PC field. Whether the Deltawing suffered from the red flag put out after a spin by the Dyson Racing machine is yet to be confirmed.
Into P2 and David Brabham, sportscar ace and Extreme Speed Motorsports third driver, clocked a time of 1:12.668 to block out the Level 5 Motorsports car of Ryan Briscoe by only one tenth of a second. In third place was Guy Cosmo and fourth was Johannes van Overbeek. With Scott Sharp‘s car starting on pole thanks to Brabham, he has drawn the first blood in the battle with Scott Tucker who will start second. At the moment Tucker has 149 points only six ahead of Sharp.
In PC and it was Dane Cameron in the #52 he shares with Mike Guasch and David Cheng who was first ahead of Bruno Junqueira by only two tenths of a second. Indeed Junqueira could have done so much better if it wasn’t for a slide off the track and minor contact with the barriers.
GT, and with the drivers battle still strong between Antonio Garcia, Jan Magnussen and Dirk Muller they couldn’t be separated on the timing and scoring screen with the trio starting fourth and fifth respectively. The difference between them? Exactly one tenth of a second.
As mentioned above it was Matteo Malucelli who claimed the final GT pole position of the American Le Mans Series as he put the Risi Competizione Ferrari ahead of both Vipers.
In sixth place and what has to be a good result for the Porschenstein is Team Falken Tire who must be praying for rain to make use of Falken’s field beating wet tyres. Plus with Nick Tandy rejoining the team alongside Bryan Sellers and Wolf Henzler, the team will be hoping to be best of the Porsches at the very least.
Finally GTC, and Flying Lizards got pole for the #45 car of Spencer Pumpelly, Nelson Canache Jr. and Madison Snow, in second place – much like a shadow for the Lizards – is Jeroen Bleekemolen in the #22 WeatherTech Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 who was three tenths down from pole having set a 1:24.433.
Petit Le Mans starts tomorrow at 4.30pm UK time with coverage live on Motors TV and alms.com with @tcfsportscars live tweeting the entire 10 hour/1000 mile racing spectacle.
