Baltimore ALMS: Lucas Luhr gives Pickett Racing fourth straight pole
Lucas Luhr gave Pickett Racing its fourth straight American Le Mans Series pole position by dominating qualifying on the streets of Baltimore
The German, who shares the team's LMP1 HPD with his countryman Klaus Graf, set three separate laps that would have been good enough for pole; his best coming in 1m25.174s.
Guy Smith put the best of the Dyson Racing Lola-Mazdas second, 0.8 seconds adrift of Luhr, but comfortably outqualified his team-mate Eric Lux's similar machine.
A late flyer from Christophe Bouchut gave the Frenchman pole in LMP2; the Level 5 HPD driver just sneaking in ahead of Martin Plowman's Conquest Morgan by 0.08s.
Oliver Gavin took a brilliant pole in GT; the Corvette driver's lap 0.380s up on the BMW Team RLL driver Bill Auberlen.
Remarkably, Gavin's time came less than an hour after his car suffered significant damage to its bodywork and exhaust in a pre-qualifying practice collision with the best of the Dyson machines.
Jan Magnussen put the second factory Corvette in third spot while Pat Long was the best of the Porsche drivers in fourth for the Flying Lizard team and Scott Sharp upheld Ferrari honours in sixth for Extreme Speed.
A heavy crash for Dominik Farnbacher in practice meant that his SRT Viper did not take part in qualifying. The sister car, driven by Marc Goossens qualified ninth in class.
Bruno Junqueira, who is also racing an IndyCar at Baltimore this weekend, survived clipping the Turn 12 tyre stack to take pole in the LMPC class; the RSR ORECA-Chevrolet driver traded the top spot several times with Ryan Dalziel's Core Autosport machine.
Irishman Damien Faulkner took the honours in GTC for the fourth time in 2012 in his Green Hornet Porsche.
Pos Cl Drivers Team/Car Time 1. P1 Luhr/Graf Pickett HPD 1m25.174s 2. P1 Dyson/Smith Dyson Lola-Mazda 1m25.914s 3. P1 Marsal/Lux Dyson Lola-Mazda 1m26.830s 4. P2 Tucker/Bouchut Level 5 HPD 1m27.119s 5. P2 Plowman/Heinemeier Hansson Conquest Morgan-Nissan 1m27.199s 6. P2 Tucker/Diaz/Gonzalez Level 5 HPD 1m28.453s 7. PC Junqueira/Drissi RSR FLM 1m27.464s 8. PC Popow/Dalziel Core FLM 1m27.541s 9. PC Bennett/Braun Core FLM 1m27.794s 10. PC Younessi/Matos Performance Tech FLM 1m28.107s 11. PC Marcelli/Burgess Merchant FLM 1m28.278s 12. PC Downs/Downs Merchant FLM 1m31.206s 13. PC Richard/Ende Dempsey FLM 1m31.811s 14. GT Gavin/Milner Corvette 1m29.945s 15. GT Muller/Auberlen RLL BMW 1m30.327s 16. GT Magnussen/Garcia Corvette 1m30.413s 17. GT Bergmeister/Long Flying Lizard Porsche 1m30.665s 18. GT Muller/Hand RLL BMW 1m30.838s 19. GT Sharp/van Overbeek Extreme Speed Ferrari 1m31.262s 20. GT Henzler/Sellers Falken Porsche 1m31.412s 21. GT Miller/Maassen Miller Porsche 1m32.108s 22. GT Goossens/Kendall SRT Viper 1m33.526s 23. GT Sweedler/Bell Alex Job Lotus 1m33.701s 24. GT Brown/Cosmo Extreme Speed Ferrari 1m37.386s 25. GT Neiman/Holzer Flying Lizard Porsche 1m40.561s 26. GT Wittmer/Farnbacher SRT Viper 27. GTC LeSaffre/Faulkner Green Hornet Porsche 1m35.493s 28. GTC MacNeil/Keen Alex Job Porsche 1m36.117s 29. GTC Cumming/Valiante JDX Porsche 1m36.412s 30. GTC Bunting/Pumpelly TRG Porsche 1m36.803s 31. GTC Carter/Pilet TRG Porsche
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