McLaren GT3 Evo in pole of LMGT3 for tomorrow race

WECLMGT3

Oct 17

Tom Fleming fastest with Garage 59’s #10 McLaren GT3 Evo in Hyperpole will start from pole position in LMGT3 for tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Barcelona.

Fleming fastest of the day

Tom Fleming was the fastest in Hyperpole and the only one under 1:41 with a 1:40.933. His Garage 59’s #10 McLaren GT3 Evo will start from pole position in LMGT3 for a second time this season.

A Porsche 911 second

Riccardo Pera drove #92 The Bend Manthey’s Porsche 911 LMGT3 R second with a 1:41.055 which means a front-row spot in the class.

Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 third

The best-placed of Vista AF Corse’s Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo cars will start third on the grid at the 6 Hours of Barcelona. Having topped two of the three Free Practice sessions, the #21 car, crewed by François Hériau, Simon Mann and official driver Alessio Rovera, will line up on the second row.

Bronze-rated drivers François Hériau qualified for Hyperpole, setting the third-fastest time in the #21 car: 1'42"678, 0.596 seconds behind the session leader. Silver-rated driver Simon Mann was immediately on the pace in the #21 car, setting a best lap of 1'41"398 to secure third on the grid, 0.465 seconds off pole position.

Championship leader fourth

Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships leaders Jonny Edgar and the #33 TF Sport Corvette were fourth with a 1:41.447.

After struggling with pace during Friday’s two free practice sessions, the #33 team made a setup change to help front-end compliance and bring it into a similar window of the sister Corvette, which made all the difference in qualifying.

The Hyperpole appearance for the #33 was a pleasant turn of events, but qualifying outside the top-10 has meant little as the trio has moved forward in previous races and scored points in five of them – tied for most in the class.

That consistency plus a win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans has put the #33 Corvette on the cusp of clinching the LMGT3 Teams Championship. If the trio finishes more than 26 points ahead of their closest competitor coming out of the race, then the #33 TF Corvette squad will clinch the championship with one race to go. The Drivers title will officially go to the season finale at Monza as Edgar leads by two points over Catsburg and 22 over Keating.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Circuit de Catalunya. **#33 TF Sport Corvette**

JONNY EDGAR, #33 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “It's been a much better day. Yesterday was really difficult for us generally compared to the sister car. We seemed to really struggle for pace and were missing a few tenths. We made some changes based on our feelings and already in FP3 the car was much better. All three of us were way happier with the balance, and we also seemed much faster. Ben did a great job of getting us into Hyperpole for the time this year, which is really nice. Going into my session I didn't know fully what to expect. I haven't done qualifying in over a year. I knew here the tire deg is pretty big so I expected the laptime to come in the first or second push lap. The first lap I did was pretty good and the second was basically the same time. So everyone did a great job. The car was massively improved, and I was happy with my lap. I don't think there was much time left in it. A big improvement from where we were yesterday, which was nice. Whenever we have a tough day, we seem to be able to turn it around. We did the same in Fuji so that's very positive. I'm looking forward to the race. It's the best starting position I've had in the two years I've driven with Ben, which is quite cool.”

(Outlook for a wet race?) “In the rain or dry, starting at the front helps. You're in a better track position, especially if it's wet you can see better. But I think the plan stays the same: no mistakes, have a clean race, drive as fast as we can. In Fuji we seemed to have a good car in the rain and today it was good in the dry. I think in any conditions we should be pretty good. We'll try to score as many points as we can for the championship.”

BEN KEATING, #33 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “I can't remember what my mock qualifying time was yesterday, but I think I'm close to two seconds a lap faster than yesterday. Yesterday I was very frustrated. Kudos to the team. Tyler (Neff, race engineer) did an amazing job of studying the data last night and figuring out what was causing our issues. The car feels so much better today. All racecars like a cool track. This morning I did a qualy sim, and I'm really glad I did but it was very different. I'm learning how to bring the tires in properly at this specific track because it's very different from most tracks we go to. I feel like I learned a lot and that I executed well.

“It's extremely tight. I think I did a 43.3 first to put me in P2, which was already a tenth quicker than my mock qualy in practice. With the heat of the day I thought that would be pretty good. I pushed for another lap and did a 43.1 and was still P2 at the time and had no doubt that was going to be good enough. On the next lap I did a 42.9 that put me in P4 at the checkered flag. I was shocked to look at the timing screen to see that my 43.1 would have put me out of Hyperpole. From fourth to 12th is only three-tenths of a second. That's extremely tight, especially when you consider that every car out there had their Bronze driver in there. You get a little bit of a mix of drivers, and I'm just thrilled. It's my first Hyperpole of the entire season. I'm grateful to be where we are and proud of Jonny for giving us a P4 starting position. It's far and away the best starting position we've had all year.” Source: Corvette Racing