Pescatori flies to Barcelona pole

The BMS Scuderia Italia driver converted his dominance from the practice sessions into pole for Sunday's race, ending the 25-minute session 1.2s up from the Pescarolo Courage-Peugeot of Sebastien Bourdais.

Pescatori, who drove for BMS in 1999 before lifting the title in JMB's similar 333SP last season, put the team's superiority down to having a known package that is perfectly set-up for the Catalunya circuit, despite changing from Pirelli to Goodyear tyres over the winter.

"The car has not changed, and the team has worked very hard to adapt to the Goodyear tyres," said the Italian afterwards. "We've developed the aerodynamics too, and things look good so far."

Formula 3000 star Bourdais was pleased with the improving Courage C60's speed, as he and ex-Grand Prix driver Jules Boullion also adapt the car to Goodyear rubber.

"We've found a good balance, but I think we could have done better - but maybe not enough to actually catch the Ferrari. But it's a long race. So we'll see what happens tomorrow."

Ferraris filled the next two spots, with Giovanni Lavaggi's Judd-powered 333SP third ahead of the second BMS Ferrari of Enzo Calderari. Pre-race favourites Ascari fared less well as they recovered from a morning warm-up crash when ex-British F3 star Ben Collins accidentally hit a slower SRII car, with South African Werner Lupberger only able to manage fifth quickest.

Problems also limited the speed of Ralf Kelleners in the Kremer Lola-Ford, shared with young British sportscar debutant Sam Hancock, and the Judd-powered Riley & Scott of Gary Formato.

But the biggest casualty of the session was the stunning new Dome chassis of Le Mans winner John Nielsen, who crashed heavily at turn 9, severely damaging the front of his new car. The team will be working all night to get the car ready for its race debut tomorrow, but for Nielsen it could be a painful one.

"I had snap oversteer all around the lap and it just went and ploughed straight in to the wall," he said. "I have bruised my shoulders on the straps when the impact happened, but after a quick massage I should be okay for the race."

The battle for SRII class pole was closely fought between the Swedish Racing Team Lola-Nissan of Thed Bjork and the Pilbeam-Nissan of sportscar newcomer Martin O'Connell. The Lola eventually just shaded the top spot by just 0.02s.




Christian Pescatori/Marco Zadra BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 333SP 1m34.399s
Sebastien Bourdias/Jules Boullion Pescarolo Sport Courage-Peugeot C60 1m35.567s
Giovanni Lavaggi/Christian Vann GLV Racing Ferrari-Judd 333SP 1m36.086s
Enzo Calderari/Lilian Bryner BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari 333SP 1m36.100s
Werner Lupberger/Ben Collins Team Ascari Ascari-Judd A410 1m36.124s
Jan Lammers/Val Hillebrand Racing for Holland Dome-Judd S101 1m36.274s
Mark Smithson/Peter Owen Redman Bright Reynard-Judd 01Q 1m37.366s
Ralf Kelleners/Sam Hancock Kremer Racing Lola-Roush B98/K2001 1m37.517s
Gary Formato/Mauro Baldi R&M Racing Riley&Scott-Judd MkIII 1m38.813s
John Nielsen/Hiroki Katoh RN Motorsport Dome-Judd S101 1m55.821s


Thed Bjork/Larry Oberto Swedish Racing Team Lola-Nissan B2K/40 1m41.581s
Martin O'Connell/Warren Carway Rowan Racing Pilbeam-Nissan MP84 1m41.601s
Ian Flux/Mike Millard Team Sovereign Rapier-Nissan 6 1m42.079s