The #41 Greaves Motorsport Gibson 01S Nissan of Jon Lancaster, Bjorn Wirdheim and Gary Hirsch will start on pole for the 4 Hours of Silverstone.
Lancaster’s 1:48.752s midway through the 20 minute qualifying session held out as the fastest lap, despite a late charge from JOTA Sport’s Harry Tincknell.
Tincknell’s final effort of 1:49.212s wasn’t enough to snatch pole, although it did ensure an all-Gibson front row for today’s four hour race.
Thiriet by TDS Racing’s Tristan Gommendy placed the ORECA 05 third for its international race debut, while former IndyCar driver Mikahil Aleshin ended the session as the fourth quickest driver, reording a 1:49.486s aboard the #34 AF Corse ORECA 03R.
GP2 star Nathanael Berthon qualified fifth, setting a 1:49.681s lap in the #48 Murphy Prototypes ORECA 03R that topped the pre-season test.
Both the prototype and the GT qualifying sessions featured drama, mainly in the form of spins. Minassian made an uncustomary rotation at Copse, while Tincknell briefly spun before setting his flying lap. In the preceding session Raffaele Gianmaria (#51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia) spun coming out of Maggots, before the Massive Motorsport Aston Martin V8 Vantage experienced a brake fire in the pits.
Charlie Robertson and Sir Chris Hoy took the first pole position of the LMP3 racing era, with Ginetta star Robertson breaking the two minute barrier with a 1:59.892s fastest lap. Fellow Team LNT driver Mike Simpson set the second quickest time 0.6 adrift, while Lanan Racing’s Joey Foster will start from third in class after posting a 2:02.045s best.
Charlie Robertson topped the LMP3 timing sheets (Credit: ELMS)
The LMGTE class pole was sealed by Michele Rugolo in the #81 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia, whose fastest lap of 2:00.151s was a tenth quicker than Klaus Bachler in the #88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR.
Alessandro Pier Guidi sealed third on the grid with a 2:00.478s lap in the #56 AT Racing Ferrari 458 Italia, while triple WTCC champion Andy Priaulx settled for fourth with BMW Team MarcVDS. Gulf Racing rounded out the top five, with Adam Carroll recording a quickest lap of 2:00.641s in the team’s Porsche 911 RSR.
In GTC, the Thiriet by TDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3 of Franck Perera once again proved to be unstoppable, as the Frenchman set a blistering 2:01.437s near the end of the session. Second on the GTC grid will be the #63 AF Corse Ferrari, which Marco Cioci qualified almost two seconds behind the BMW. Francesco Castellacci rounded out the top three with a 2:03.298s aboard the sister #63 AF Corse Ferrari.
The 4 Hours of Silverstone gets underway later today at 14:30 GMT. The Checkered Flag will be running live text from the circuit throughout the race.
4 Hours of Silverstone Qualifying Times
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