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Rafanelli on pole at Silverstone ELMS race

Mimmo Schiattarella has continued his domination of the Silverstone round of the European Le Mans Series by taking pole for tonight's race in the privateer Rafanelli Lola-Judd

The Italian ace scorched to a fastest time of 1m37.030s - more than three tenths ahead of David Brabham's Panoz, which went second fastest with a time of 1m37.360s.

"I'm very happy to be in front of the factory teams," said Schiattarella. "And it's great to be ahead of such an experienced ex-F1 driver as David. It's very exciting."

Brabham was equally complimentary about the Rafanelli ace: "I was hoping for pole but Mimmo obviously did the best job. I'm not too despondent because it's a long race and a lot depends on tyres and fuel strategy."

The sister Panoz driven by Hiroki Kato will start the race from third place after the Japanese posted a time of 1m37.485.

He will be joined on the second row of the grid by the 1999-spec Audi R8 driven by Allan McNish, who hussled his ageing mount to a best of 1m37.495s.

Olivier Beretta in the Chrysler Viper has taken his third GTS class pole in a row with yet another memorable performance.

His time of 1m48.419s was half a second faster than team-mates Tommy Archer and David Donohue, who hussled their Viper to a 1m48.968s fastest lap.

"We are treating this very much as a training session for Le Mans, but it's a shame the Corvettes aren't here to give us a run for our money," said Beretta. "But you never know what will happen in the race itself."

Porsche GT3-R driver Dirk Muller will start from his customary GT3 class pole after he posted a time of 1m52.911.

"The mechanics have worked very hard to get the car ready for this race, so it's a good feeling to give them the class pole," he said.

All of the fastest times were set during Friday's first qualifying session, when the weather conditions at Silverstone were cooler.

The Silverstone round of the European Le Mans Series starts at 1700 GMT tonight (Saturday). It will be show live on Eurosport, or log onto www.americanlemans.com for live commentary and timing.

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