Silverstone ELMS: Jon Lancaster puts Greaves on pole
Jon Lancaster claimed pole position for the opening round of the European Le Mans Series at Silverstone
The GP2 race winner moved to the top of the timesheets in the Greaves Motorsport-run Gibson-Nissan 015S with six minutes remaining.
Lancaster's run to pole position was helped by main rival Harry Tincknell having a troubled session.
Tincknell, who is part of the Nissan LMP1 squad but also contesting the full ELMS campaign with the Jota Sport Gibson team, had a trip through the gravel early in his run.
He salvaged second place, 0.460s off Lancaster, with a final-lap effort that gained him close to a second, which was good enough to allow him to jump up from fifth place.
This relegated early provisional polesitter Tristan Gommendy's Nissan-engined TDS Racing ORECA 05 to third, with Mikhail Aleshin taking fourth place in the AF Corse ORECA-Nissan 03.
Nathanael Berthon, who was fastest early in the session, was fifth fastest in the Murphy Prototypes ORECA 03R.
The new LMP3 category made its debut, with five examples of the Nissan-engined Ginetta participating in qualifying.
Charlie Robertson, driving one of the two Team LNT-run cars alongside cycling legend Chris Hoy, claimed class pole in 12th place overall.
Robertson was 11s off the pole position time, and fractionally ahead of the leading GT cars as the quickest of the new machines.
Michael Simpson, in the sister LNT car, was second fastest ahead of the Lanaan Racing entry driven by Joey Foster.
Michele Rugolo won a closely-fought battle for LM GTE pole position, the AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia bumped Klaas Bachler's Proton Porsche 911 RSR down to second by just 0.118s.
Alessandro Pier Guidi was third fastest in the AF Corse-run AT Racing Ferrari after outpacing Marc VDS BMW Z4 GTE driver Andy Priaulx by just two thousandths of a second.
In the GTC class for GT3-specification machinery, Franck Perera took a dominant pole position in the TDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3.
He was just over a second faster than second-placed Marco Cioci in the AF Corse-run Ferrari.
RESULTS:
| Pos | Class | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LMP2 | Jon Lancaster | Greaves Motorsport | Gibson/Nissan | 1m48.752s | - |
| 2 | LMP2 | Harry Tincknell | JOTA Sport | Gibson/Nissan | 1m49.212s | 0.460s |
| 3 | LMP2 | Tristan Gommendy | Thiriet by TDS Racing | ORECA/Nissan | 1m49.353s | 0.601s |
| 4 | LMP2 | Mikhail Aleshin | AF Corse | ORECA/Nissan | 1m49.486s | 0.734s |
| 5 | LMP2 | Nathanael Berthon | Murphy Prototypes | ORECA/Nissan | 1m49.681s | 0.929s |
| 6 | LMP2 | Nick de Bruijn | Eurasia Motorsport | ORECA/Nissan | 1m50.216s | 1.464s |
| 7 | LMP2 | Leo Roussel | Pegasus Racing | Morgan/Nissan | 1m50.757s | 2.005s |
| 8 | LMP2 | Ivan Bellarosa | Ibanez Racing | ORECA/Nissan | 1m51.418s | 2.666s |
| 9 | LMP2 | Nicolas Minassian | AF Corse | ORECA/Nissan | 1m52.020s | 3.268s |
| 10 | LMP2 | Michele La Rosa | Ibanez Racing | ORECA/Nissan | 1m53.096s | 4.344s |
| 11 | LMP2 | Tracy Krohn | Krohn Racing | Ligier/Judd | 1m55.589s | 6.837s |
| 12 | LMP3 | Charlie Robertson | Team LNT | Ginetta/Nissan | 1m59.892s | - |
| 13 | LMGTE | Michele Rugolo | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m00.151s | - |
| 14 | LMGTE | Klaus Bachler | Proton Competition | Porsche | 2m00.269s | - |
| 15 | LMP3 | Mike Simpson | Team LNT | Ginetta/Nissan | 2m00.457s | - |
| 16 | LMGTE | Alessandro Pier Guidi | AT Racing | Ferrari | 2m00.478s | - |
| 17 | LMGTE | Andy Priaulx | BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS | BMW | 2m00.480s | - |
| 18 | LMGTE | Adam Carroll | Gulf Racing UK | Porsche | 2m00.641s | - |
| 19 | LMGTE | Sam Tordoff | JMW Motorsport | Ferrari | 2m00.997s | - |
| 20 | LMGTE | Matt Griffin | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m01.110s | - |
| 21 | LMGTE | Raffaele Giammaria | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m01.336s | - |
| 22 | LMGTE | Mikkel Mac | Formula Racing | Ferrari | 2m01.437s | - |
| 23 | GTC | Franck Perera | TDS Racing | BMW | 2m01.939s | - |
| 24 | LMP3 | Joey Foster | Lanan Racing | Ginetta/Nissan | 2m02.045s | - |
| 25 | LMP3 | Rob Garofall | University of Bolton | Ginetta/Nissan | 2m02.686s | - |
| 26 | GTC | Marco Cioci | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m03.002s | - |
| 27 | GTC | Francesco Castellacci | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m03.298s | - |
| 28 | GTC | Francisco Guedes | AF Corse | Ferrari | 2m03.564s | - |
| 29 | GTC | Casper Elgaard | Massive Motorsport | Aston Martin | 2m04.046s | - |
| 30 | GTC | Daniel Brown | Gulf Racing UK | Lamborghini | 2m04.596s | - |
| 31 | LMP3 | Konstantins Calko | SVK by Speed Factory | Ginetta/Nissan | 2m06.697s | - |
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