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Turner claims pole at Silverstone

Darren Turner claimed pole position for the Young Driver AMR Aston Martin team at his home round of the FIA GT1 World Championship at Silverstone

Aston Martin factory driver Turner leapfrogged Frederic Makowiecki in the timesheets to go fastest in the closing seconds of the third segment of the new championship's qualifying procedure.

His time was four tenths quicker than Hexis Aston Martin driver Makowiecki.

Turner, whose team-mate Tomas Enge will start this afternoon's qualifying race from pole position, said: "I'm very happy to be on pole after a lot of disappointment at Abu Dhabi [the opening round of the series]. It's nice to be at the sharp end of the grid."

The Aston Martin DBR9, which was given a 50kg weight break ahead of this event, topped the timesheets in all three 10-minute qualifying sessions.

Stefan Mucke was fastest in Qualifying 1 in the second Young Driver car and Clivio Piccione did the best time in Qualifying 2 at the wheel of the second Hexis car.

Sumo Power Nissan driver Michael Krumm ended up third in the timesheets, just over two tenths behind Makowiecki. The German was three tenths ahead of Andrea Bertolini in the best of the Vitaphone Maseratis.

Oliver Gavin was second fastest in Qualifying 1 at the wheel of the SRT-run Mad Croc Chevrolet Corvette C6.R. His team-mate, sextogenarian Pertti Kuismanen was unable to make it into the top eight in Qualifying 2, meaning the car failed to make it into the final session.

Also eliminated at this stage was the winner of the main event at Abu Dhabi, the Matech Ford GT driven by Romain Grosjean and Thomas Mutsch.

Grosjean was only 15th in the opening session and Mutsch was second slowest in Qualifying 2.

Those eliminated in the first round included multiple FIA GT Championship race-winner Karl Wendlinger in the Swiss Racing Team Nissan GT-R and All-Inkl Lamborghini driver Christophe Bouchut.


Pos  Drivers                 Team/Car              Time
 1.  Turner/Enge             Young Driver Aston    1m58.81s
 2.  Makowiecki/Accary       Hexis Aston Martin    1m59.29s
 3.  Krumm/Dumbreck          SumoPower Nissan      1m59.50s
 4.  Bertolini/Bartels       Vitaphone Maserati    1m59.78s
 5.  Hughes/Campbell-Walter  SumoPower Nissan      2m00.46s
 6.  Piccione/Hirschi        Hexis Aston Martin    2m00.57s
 7.  Menten/Kechele          All-Inkl Lamborghini  2m00.64s
 8.  Kox/Haase               Reiter Lamborghini    2m00.70s
 9.  Zuber/Hennerici         Phoenix Corvette      2m00.22s
10.  Nygaard/Mucke           Young Driver Aston    2m00.34s
11.  Hezemans/Kumpen         Phoenix Corvette      2m00.64s
12.  Bobbi/Longin            Triple H Maserati     2m01.28s
13.  Bernoldi/Ramos          Vitaphone Maserati    2m01.37s
14.  Margaritis/Heger        Triple H Maserati     2m01.90s
15.  Mutsch/Grosjean         Matech Ford           2m02.11s
16.  Gavin/Kuismanen         MadCroc Corvette      2m02.29s
17.  Bouchut/Basseng         All-Inkl Lamborghini  2m01.16s
18.  Leinders/Martin         Marc VDS Ford         2m01.18s
19.  Ara/Nilsson             SRT Nissan            2m01.19s
20.  Maassen/Armindo         MadCroc Corvette      2m01.42s
21.  Wendlinger/Moser        SRT Nissan            2m01.51s
22.  Palttala/Kuppens        Marc VDS Ford         2m02.07s
23.  Schwager/Pastorelli     Reiter Lamborghini    2m02.93s

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