The weatherman was right, rain was headed to Silverstone and it made its appearance during ILMC qualifying today. Tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Silverstone should see the same.
Peugeot’s Simon Pagenaud would lay down a 1:43.924 on the damp Silverstone circuit and take pole. The rain was only coming down in certain spots which made it extremely difficult to put in a strong lap Pagenaud said.
Allan McNish was able to split the two Peugeots with a 1:44.856. The gap to Pagenaud was 0.932 seconds.
“It’s great to be back in the UK, particularly at Silverstone and its fantastic race track. Yesterday and today the weather has been very changeable and that will continue to be the case tomorrow. We need to closely watch the weather forecasts with respect to the set-up of our cars. We tried out various options in the past two days. It looks like there may be more rain tomorrow – and I’m hoping for us to be perfectly prepared for it. Allan – McNish – did a good job in qualifying. Now we’re exactly between the two Peugeot on the grid. That could mean that we’re in for a thrilling 6-hour race tomorrow.”
Stephane Sarrazin would round out the top three in the no8 Peugeot with a 1:45.102. The two Peugeot 908′s have been at the front all weekend.
The no1 Audi R18 TDI driven by Timo Bernhard ended up 4th after a spin in the rain. A 1:46.621 would end up just under 3 seconds off the pole position time.
“That was a difficult qualifying session. Just before the start, rain set in. On both of the two timed laps when the track offered the highest grip level I had to overtake two or three cars. At the end of my third flying lap the rain was really pouring down. It wasn’t possible to improve any more. So we were a bit unfortunate. But I think we can make up for that in the race – because our performance is right.”
6 Hours of Silverstone Qualifying results
1 Bourdais/Pagenaud – Peugeot – 1:43.924s
2 Kristensen/McNish – Audi R18 TDI – 1:44.856s
3 Montagny/Sarrazin – Peugeot – 1:45.102s
4 Bernhard/Fässler – Audi R18 TDI – 1:46.621s
5 Jani/Prost – Lola-Toyota – 1:47.684s
6 Lahaye/Moreau/Ragues – Oak-Pescarolo-Judd – 1:47.785s
7 Nicolet/Prémat/Pla – Oak-Pescarolo-Judd – 1:47.890s
8 Belicchi/Boullion – Lola-Toyota – 1:48.287s
9 Collard/Tinseau/Jousse – Pescarolo-Judd – 1:48.624s
10 Laventis/Watts/Kane – HPD – 1:49.619s
