McNish secures third pole of season
Allan McNish secured his third pole position of the season in final qualifying for round seven of the American Le Mans Series at the Texas Motor Speedway. The Audi driver improved on his provisional pole time by over a half a second in the final 20-minute session
McNish's best time of 1m13.242s was less than one tenth of a second ahead of team mate Emanuele Pirro, who was disappointed to miss out on his first qualifying top spot of the season.
Pirro said: "My mistake was that I waited for five or six minutes before going out and by the time I was up to speed there were spots of rain that made the track a bit slippery at the chicane. I'm happy with my performance, but disappointed that we didn't end up on pole. If I'd started earlier I'm sure I would have done it."
Third fastest, a second off the pace, was Jan Magnussen's Panoz, while Jean-Marc Gounon was fourth fastest in the best of the BMWs. The Frenchman lines up for the Saturday evening event just ahead of the sister car driven by Jorg Muller and JJ Lehto.
ORECA Dodge driver Karl Wendlinger snatched pole position from the Chevrolet Corvette squad in final qualifying. The Austrian went one tenth of a second quicker than Ron Fellows in the C5-R 'Vette before bringing out the yellow flags when he hit a spinning GT class Porsche in the chicane.
Wendlinger said: "The car was good and the track much quicker than yesterday."
Fellows was surprised that he was only able to improve his Friday time by one tenth, despite the cooler temperatures. "The car just slipped and slid out there. The temperatures didn't seem to help us."
Damage to the Viper GTS-R Wendlinger shares with Olivier Beretta was only cosmetic. " I was on my 'in' lap when a Porsche spun in front of me and I couldn't avoid him."
Dirk Muller firmed up his provisional pole position in the GT class with a time the best part of a second up on his Friday best. Sascha Maassen made it a Dick Barbour Porsche one-two with a fastest time just five hundredths behind his team mate. Mosport GT winner Randy Pobst was third fastest, a massive 1.7 seconds shy of Muller's best.
1 Allan McNish (Audi R8) 1m12.716Ss
2 Emanuele Pirro (Audi R8) 1m12.809s
3 Jan Magnussen (Panoz LMP Roadster) 1m13.741s
4 Jean-Marc Gounon (BMW V12 LMR) 1m14.178s
5 Jorg Muller (BMW V12 LMR) 1m14.222s
6 Hiroki Katoh (Panoz LMP Roadster S) 1m14.261s
GTS Karl Wendlinger (Dodge Viper GTS-R) 1m20.421s
GT Dirk Muller (Porsche 911 GT3-R) 1m23.730s
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