2022 [WEC] Spa 6 hours

[erwin greven]

Glickenhaus Scores Maiden WEC Pole at Spa

Oliver Pla delivers American squad first WEC pole in history, beating Alpine’s Vaxiviere…
by Davey Euwema, May 6, 2022


Glickenhaus Racing took its maiden pole position in the FIA World Endurance Championship as Olivier Pla set the fastest lap in qualifying for the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

Pla set a lap of 2:02.771 behind the wheel of the No. 708 Glickenhaus 007 Pipo to outqualify the No. 36 Alpine A480-Gibson of Matthieu Vaxiviere by 0.228s.

It marks the first pole position for the American privateer squad in its premier appearance at the Belgian circuit.

Toyota took third and fourth respectively, with Kamui Kobayashi leading the hybrid cars with a best effort of 2:03.087 ahead of teammate Brendon Hartley.

In LMP2, Alessio Rovera put in a last gap effort to take pole position in LMP2.

The Italian reeled off a lap of 2:04.246 behind the wheel of the No. 83 AF Corse Oreca 07 Gibson.

That was enough to beat out the No. 31 Team WRT Oreca of Robin Frijns by a mere 0.044 seconds.

It marks the first time AF Corse has secured pole position since it stepped up to LMP2 competition in preparation for the Ferrari Hypercar program.

Filipe Albuquerque was third for United Autosports, ahead of Prema’s Louis Deletraz and Norman Nato rounding out the top five in the No. 41 Realteam by WRT Oreca.


Bruni bests Christensen to GTE-Pro pole

Gianmaria Bruni beat Porsche teammate Michael Christensen to lock out the front row in GTE-Pro, with Corvette beating Ferrari to third.

Bruni put in a 2:14.301 behind the wheel of the No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 at the flag, going 0.180 seconds up on Christensen.

The Dane looked to have pole position sealed with a best effort of 2:14.481, but dropped down to second place at the flag.

In third place, Nick Tandy put in Corvette Racing’s best showing of the weekend so far.

The Briton posted a 2:14.606 behind the wheel of the No. 64 Corvette C8.R to initially jump up to second place before Bruni’s pole lap demoted him down to third.

The American squad outqualified both AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evos, with Alessandro Pier Guidi fourth in the No. 51 ahead of the sister car driven by Miguel Molina.

Ben Keating captured pole position in GTE-Am, coming back from having his opening lap deleted to lead an Aston Martin one-two.

The Texan reeled off a 2:17.408 to take his second consecutive pole of the season aboard the No. 33 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR.

He outpaced his nearest competition, the No. 98 NorthWest AMR of Paul Dalla Lana, by 1,5 seconds.

Brendan Iribe was third in the No. 56 Team Project 1 Porsche ahead of Iron Dames’ Christina Nielsen, making her first appearance for the Italian squad.

Niki Leutwiler rounded out the top five in the second Team Project 1 car.

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/gli ... le-at-spa/

[Everso Biggyballies]

Hmmm in the WEC outright class looks like Toyota still have not found the magic something that they seem to be missing.... though the gap from Kobayashi to pole was less than half a second.

[erwin greven]

The Toyota's can run a longer stint than the Reb... Alpine and the Glick. The latter ones need to run away from the Toyota's to have a chance on a win.

[erwin greven]

Third red flag after Alex Brundle crashes at Jacky Ickx corner. Weather is awful. Standing water, rivers across the track. #31 Robin Frijns in an LMP2 is leading the race. #7 Toyota is 2nd, the Glickenhaus 3rd. Frijs was 3 seconds a lap faster than the Toyota...

[erwin greven]

Green flag again. Sadly Frijns can't extent his lead anymore. The Toyota passes him.

[MonteCristo]

The Toyota's can run a longer stint than the Reb... Alpine and the Glick. The latter ones need to run away from the Toyota's to have a chance on a win.

Reminds me of the Audis and Pescarolos at Le Mans.

Audi thumped them in the end. Qualifying was all a facade .

[Everso Biggyballies]

Third red flag after Alex Brundle crashes at Jacky Ickx corner. Weather is awful. Standing water, rivers across the track. #31 Robin Frijns in an LMP2 is leading the race. #7 Toyota is 2nd, the Glickenhaus 3rd. Frijs was 3 seconds a lap faster than the Toyota...

Shame the qualifying weather had blown through by race time. Horrible conditions after a pleasant looking day at the start. Sadly the weather brought with it several FCY's and I think 3 reds.

Not quite sure what happened to the (polesitting!) Glick to finish a lap down and behind several LMP2's...
(Edit: OK just read they had a miscommunication and made an extra stop in error.)

Talking of LMP2 the WRT entry of Rast Gelael and Frijns looked to be a class act and snagged an overall podium. With all the yellows and stuff they were up there at times fighting for overall lead.

At the end of the day though it looked like Toyota #7 at a bit of a canter with Alpine half a minute behind..

Good battle in the GTE Pro class, with Ferrari coming good.

A shame it got so weather affected and never dried out again.

Not long now until the LM24 again. At the proper time of year, 2nd weekend in June.


RACE RESULTS


Highlights: