Hungaroring ELMS: Brendon Hartley earns pole for Murphy Prototypes

The ex-Red Bull junior single seater racer was two seconds clear of his nearest challenger in horrendous conditions, as the session was punctuated by several red flag stoppages.

In the end, the Murphy car's nearest challenger was the Race Performance Oreca driven by Patric Niederhauser, just ahead of Nelson Panciatici in the Signatech Alpine.

Panciatici was one of the few drivers to find a clear lap in the last five minutes of green flag action before there was a final stoppage with just over a minute left on the clock.

However, conditions had worsened since the earlier laps of the session so he was unable to improve.

The poor weather caused problems for two of the championship's frontrunners, with the #1 Thiriet by TDS Racing entry and the #38 Jota Sport car hitting trouble.

Jota's session came to an early end when Oliver Turvey went off and tagged the barriers at Turn 1, while Mathias Beche was one of several cars to spin into the gravel further round the lap.

That left Turvey fifth fastest for Jota, while Beche - sharing with championship leader Pierre Thiriet - was only seventh.

In the GT ranks, the easier to drive GTC cars had the edge over the GTE machines.

That enabled Lorenzo Case to take pole in the GTC AF Corse entry, while Andrea Bertolini was the best GTE runner for JMW Motorsport and went second fastest.

Pos Cl   Drivers                       Team/Car                    Time       Gap    
 1. P2   Hartley/Hirschi               Murphy ORECA-Nissan         2m09.301s  
 2. P2   Frey/Niederhauser             Race Peformance ORECA-Judd  2m11.394s   +2.093s
 3. P2   Ragues/Panciatici             Signatech Alpine-Nissan     2m12.251s   +2.950s
 4. P2   Mediani/Zlobin                Oreca-Nissan                2m12.763s   +3.462s
 5. P2   Dolan/Turvey                  Jota Zytek-Nissan           2m13.350s   +4.049s
 6. PC   Chatin/Hirsch                 Endurance FLM               2m13.959s   +4.658s
 7. P2   Thiriet/Beche                 TDS ORECA-Nissan            2m16.784s   +7.483s
 8. P2   Gachnang/Klien                Morand Morgan-Judd          2m16.904s   +7.603s
 9. PC   Pons/Ayari                    Endurance FLM               2m16.927s   +7.626s
10. GTC  Rizzoli/Gai/Case              AF Ferrari                  2m17.878s   +8.577s
11. GTE  Bertolini/Camathias           JMW Ferrari                 2m19.363s  +10.062s
12. GTC  Babini/Shaitar/Ladygin        SMP Ferrari                 2m19.524s  +10.223s
13. GTC  Rocca/Romanini/Mancini        Easy Ferrari                2m20.996s  +11.695s
14. GTC  Kox/Pronk/Retera              Kox Lamborghini             2m22.799s  +13.498s
15. P2   Hartshorne/Kapadia/Al-Mudhaf  Boutsen ORECA-Nissan        2m23.507s  +14.206s
16. GTE  Ried/Bachler/Tandy            Proton Porsche              2m24.568s  +15.267s
17. GTE  Milesi/Vernay                 IMSA Porsche                2m30.589s  +21.288s
18. GTE  Perrodo/Collard               Prospeed Porsche            2m31.706s  +22.405s
19. GTE  Mowlem/Griffin                Ram Ferrari                 2m34.872s  +25.571s
20. GTC  Millroy/McCaig/Twyman         Ecosse BMW                  2m43.465s  +34.164s
21. GTE  Jeannette/Montecalvo          Ram Ferrari                 2m47.476s  +38.175s
22. GTE  Perazzini/Cioci/Leo           AF Ferrari                  2m51.096s  +41.795s
23. PC   Jones/Catsburg                Endurance FLM               -          
24. GTE  Mallegol/Bachelier/Blank      AF Ferrari                  -
25. GTC  Markozov/Persiani/Frolov      SMP Ferrari                 -