Peugeot secures Petit front row
Peugeot swept the front row of the grid for the Petit Le Mans, with Nicolas Minassian putting the #07 car on the top spot in front of Franck Montagny's #08 machine
The Le Mans winning 908s had dominated at Road Atlanta since the start of practice on Thursday morning, and although Audi narrowed the gap in final practice earlier today, Peugeot proved unstoppable in qualifying trim.
Minassian's 1m06.937s beat Montagny by 0.223s, while Dindo Capello was a full 1.2s down on the Peugeots in the best of the Audis.
The two R15 TDIs share the second row, with Lucas Luhr just 0.028s slower than Capello.
Simon Pagenaud put the sole LMP1 Acura in the session in fifth place for De Ferran - the Highcroft car still being reconstructed around a new chassis following Scott Sharp's huge accident yesterday. Pagenaud pushed right to the end of the session to try and get among the diesels, eventually closing to within 0.2s of the Audis and emerging over a second faster than the rest of the petrol field.
The De Ferran car will share row three with the ORECA, which just beat the Intersport Lola. The Drayson Lola is set to make its debut from ninth on the grid after Jonny Cocker stopped on track with a fuel pump problem and caused a brief red flag.
Marino Franchitti took another LMP2 pole for Dyson, while the sister Lola-Mazda sat out the session as it is running on a development fuel that will make it ineligible for points, so is using the event as a test. Cytosport Porsche's Klaus Graf beat the class champion Fernandez Acura to second, 1.2s down on Franchitti's dominant run.
The GT class saw a sensational battle for pole and a shock one-two for two of the American Le Mans Series' smallest teams.
Veteran David Murry gave Robertson Racing the first pole for its Doran Ford, ahead of the LG team's Riley Corvette. Murry had taken provisional pole early on, and was then pushed back to third as the #4 factory Corvette and then Tom Sutherland's Riley car jumped ahead. But Murry was not willing to relinquish the position and went back out for a second attempt - beating Sutherland by 0.058s and Olivier Beretta by 0.093s.
The Rahal Letterman BMWs were back in fourth and fifth after dominating practice - although Dirk Muller was still within a tenth of pole in the ultra-close field - while the #45 Flying Lizard car was the top Porsche in sixth.
The Risi Ferrari only managed a single flying lap before a tyre blew and sent Jaime Melo back to the pits, leaving the car 10th in class.
Pos Drivers Cl Car Time 1. Minassian/Lamy P1 Peugeot 1m06.937s 2. Sarrazin/Montagny P1 Peugeot 1m07.160s 3. Capello/McNish P1 Audi 1m08.200s 4. Luhr/Werner P1 Audi 1m08.228s 5. De Ferran/Pagenaud/Dixon P1 Acura 1m08.348s 6. Panis/Lapierre/Dumas P1 ORECA 1m09.566s 7. Field/Field P1 Lola 1m09.685s 8. Leitzinger/Franchitti/Devlin P2 Lola-Mazda 1m10.152s 9. Drayson/Cocker/Bell P1 Lola 1m10.552s 10. Pickett/Graf/Maassen P2 Porsche 1m11.405s 11. Fernandez/Diaz P2 Acura 1m11.758s 12. Burgess/McMurry/Willman P1 Lola 1m12.676s 13. Murry/Robertson/Robertson GT2 Doran Ford 1m20.819s 14. Sutherland/Drissi/Bell GT2 Riley Corvette 1m20.877s 15. Beretta/Gavin/Fassler GT2 Corvette 1m20.912s 16. Muller/Milner/Muller GT2 BMW 1m20.981s 17. Hand/Auberlen/Priaulx GT2 BMW 1m21.219s 18. Bergmeister/Long/Lieb GT2 Porsche 1m21.299s 19. Magnussen/O'Connell/Garcia GT2 Corvette 1m21.491s 20. Farnbacher/James GT2 Panoz 1m21.648s 21. Henzler/Werner GT2 Porsche 1m21.760s 22. Melo/Kaffer/Salo GT2 Ferrari 1m22.718s 23. Sellers/Cicero GT2 Porsche 1m23.081s 24. Feinberg/Hall GT2 Dodge 1m23.121s 25. Law/van Overbeek/Neiman GT2 Porsche 1m25.601s
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