Porsche dominate qualifying

Having dominated the last ALMS race at Lexington in May, the two works LMP2 Porsche Spyders claimed a front row sweep at Lime Rock this afternoon, with Romain Dumas beating teammate Lucas Luhr to pole.

"I was surprised by my time, but I'm very happy," said Dumas. "We knew before we came here that this was a good track for us.

"It's a very slow track and the gap between LMP2 and LMP1 is smaller. It's very important to make the first row all-yellow."

Luhr was content to complete the all-Porsche front row, but admitted that he would preferred to be the one on pole position.

"I'm happy, it's good for Porsche," he said. "You're never really happy when you get beaten by your teammate, but that's the way it is. If I was happy to get beaten I think I would be in the wrong job. Let's see how it goes tomorrow."

The overall pace was remarkable, with new qualifying lap records being set in LMP1, LMP2 and GT2. Dumas' pole time was four seconds quicker than the previous LMP2 record at the 1.5-mile track.

James Weaver briefly held provisional pole in Dyson's Lola before the Porsches pushed him back to third.

The Dyson car will start alongside Allan McNish and Dindo Capello's Audi R8, in its last ALMS outing before being replaced by the Le Mans winning R10 TDI. Although they lapped within a tenth of the R8's best ever Lime Rock time, McNish and Capello were 1.3 seconds from pole position, demonstrating how the competition has moved on.

Aston Martin driver Darren Turner beat the Corvettes to GT1 pole, with his teammate Pedro Lamy took fourth in class after spinning through a particularly swampy piece of run-off during the practice session held before qualifying.

"It's the first time for the team and all four drivers here, and it's certainly a daunting circuit," said Turner. "In the first session this morning I found it quite scary.

"I'm really delighted, because it's the first pole for me in the series."

Final practice also claimed a significant GT2 victim, with Formula One test driver Marc Gene crashing the Risi Ferrari 430 GT that he will share with Champ Car racer Mario Dominguez.

They will start last, but their teammate Toni Villander put the sister car on class pole and broke the lap record on his ALMS debut.

Qualifying times:

Pos  Cl.  Drivers                    Car                          Time
 1.  P2   T.Bernhard, R.Dumas        Porsche RS Spyder          45.588 
 2.  P2   S.Maassen, L.Luhr          Porsche RS Spyder          45.878 
 3.  P1   J.Weaver, B.Leitzinger     Lola B06/10 AER            46.306 
 4.  P1   R.Capello, A.McNish        Audi R8                    46.965 
 5.  P1   D.Dayton, A.Wallace        Lola EX257 AER             47.765 
 6.  P2   C.Field, L.Halliday        Lola B05/40 AER            48.004 
 7.  P1   C.McMurry, M.Lewis         Lola EX257 AER             48.554 
 8.  GT1  T.Enge, D.Turner           Aston Martin DBR9          50.272 
 9.  GT1  O.Gavin, O.Beretta         Chevrolet Corvette C6-R    50.491 
10.  GT1  R.Fellows, J.O'Connell     Chevrolet Corvette C6-R    50.873 
11.  GT1  P.Lamy, S.Sarrazin         Aston Martin DBR9          50.905 
12.  P2   J.Bach, G.Cosmo            Courage C65 Mazda          51.079 
13.  P2   G.van der Steur, B.Devlin  Lola B2K/40 AER            51.361 
14.  GT2  R.Kelleners, T.Vilander    Ferrari 430 GT Berlinetta  53.322 
15.  GT2  J.Van Overbeek, W.Henzler  Porsche 911 GT3 RSR        53.660 
16.  GT2  B.Auberlen, J.Hand         BMW M3 E36                 53.713 
17.  GT2  D.Law, S.Neiman            Porsche 911 GT3 RSR        54.138 
18.  GT2  J.Bergmeister, P.Long      Porsche 911 GT3 RSR        53.920 
19.  GT2  M.Rockenfeller, K.Graf     Porsche 911 GT3 RSR        54.127 
20.  GT2  G.Jeannette, T.Milner      Panoz Esparante GT-LM      54.138 
21.  GT2  S.Maxwell, D.Brabham       Panoz Esparante GT-LM      54.286 
22.  GT2  J.Marks, B.Sellers         BMW M3 E36                 54.486 
23.  P1   C.Dyson, G.Smith           Lola B06/10 AER            No time 
24.  GT2  M.Gene, M.Dominguez        Ferrari 430 GT Berlinetta  No time