Ferrari on Provisional Istanbul Pole
Andrea Piccini claimed a last-gasp provisional pole position for Sunday's eighth round of the FIA GT Championship in Turkey
The GPC Squadra Corse driver found half a second in his Ferrari 575GTC around the 3.31-mile Istanbul Park circuit to pip Philipp Peter at the top of the timesheets. Piccini, who shares the 575 with ex-Formula One driver Jean-Denis Deletraz, set a best time of 1:49.611, which was less than one tenth of a second ahead of Peter's best in the JMB Racing Maserati MC12.
The Italian driver's time is almost certain to stand as pole: most teams used the two new sets of tyres allocated for qualifying in the belief that the track will be much slower in hotter conditions in the afternoon.
Third and fourth fastest were the two Vitaphone Racing Maseratis. Fabio Babini ended up ahead of teammate Timo Scheider, who tangled with Pedro Lamy's Larbre Competition Ferrari 550 Maranello on his second qualifying run.
The championship-leader JMB Maserati of Andrea Bertolini and Karl Wendlinger, which is carrying 100kg of success ballast, qualified down in seventh place, behind Christophe Bouchut's Cirtek 550 Maranello and Lamy.
Honours in the GT2 class went to Marc Lieb in the best of the GruppeM Porsche 911 GT3-RSRs. The German ended up nearly half a second ahead of teammate Emmanuel Collard.
Provisional Qualifying Results:
Pos Cl. Drivers Car Time Laps 1. GT1 Deletraz/Piccini Ferrari 575 Maranello GTC 1:49.611 14 2. GT1 Peter/Artam/Pillon Maserati MC12 GT1 1:49.696 + 0.085 18 3. GT1 Babini/Biagi Maserati MC12 GT1 1:50.016 + 0.405 12 4. GT1 Bartels/Scheider Maserati MC12 GT1 1:50.187 + 0.576 9 5. GT1 Bouchut/Fomenko/Vasiliev Ferrari 550 Maranello 1:50.406 + 0.795 14 6. GT1 Lamy/Gardel Ferrari 550 Maranello 1:50.525 + 0.914 14 7. GT1 Bertolini/Wendlinger Maserati MC12 GT1 1:50.742 + 1.131 14 8. GT1 Longin/Kumpen/Hezemans Corvette C5R 1:51.028 + 1.417 11 9. GT1 Pergl/Kox Ferrari 550 Maranello 1:51.255 + 1.644 19 10. GT1 Lechner/Ruberti Saleen S7 R 1:51.353 + 1.742 8 11. GT1 Keen/Halliday Lister Storm GT 1:52.226 + 2.615 17 12. GT2 Lieb/Rockenfeller Porsche 996 GT3 RSR 1:55.450 + 5.839 13 13. GT1 Saviozzi/Marcinkiewicz/Konrad Saleen S7 R 1:55.605 + 5.994 13 14. GT2 Collard/Sugden Porsche 996 GT3 RSR 1:55.858 + 6.247 16 15. GT2 Busnelli/Moccia Porsche 996 GT3 RSR 1:58.032 + 8.421 15 16. GT2 Lambertini/Lemeret Ferrari 360 Modena 1:58.762 + 9.151 13 17. GT2 Vonka/Casadei/Armindo Porsche 996 GT3 RSR 2:01.818 + 12.207 13 18. GT2 Ried/Ried Porsche 996 GT3 RSR 2:02.572 + 12.961 16 19. GT2 Konopka/Emiliani Porsche 996 GT3 RSR 2:04.764 + 15.153 16
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