The MONLAU COMPETITION SEAT Leon TCR V2 DSG (#107, Jurgen Smet/Jose Manuel Perez Aicart/Alba Cano Ramirez/Alvaro Bajo) took the pole position for the 24H SILVERSTONE, the opening round of the 2017 24H TOURING CAR ENDURANCE SERIES.
Jose Manuel Perez Aicart lapped the 5.901 kilometre Grand Prix circuit in 2:13.466 minutes. Second quickest after the one hour long session under dry conditions was the Red Camel-Jordans.nl SEAT Leon TCR V3 DSG (#303, Rik Breukers/Ivo Breukers/Sjaco Griffioen/Klaus Kresnik). On his last lap, Rik Breukers brought down the gap to 0.477 seconds, but could not take the pole position away from the Spanish squad. The Team Bleekemolen SEAT Leon TCR V2 SEQ (#100, Sebastiaan Bleekemolen/Melvin de Groot/Rob Smith/Rene Steenmetz), that led last year’s race over long stretches, ended up in third place.
Tomorrow’s starting grid will not only be based on the order of the qualifying times. The TCR cars will line up in the odd grid positions with the SP3-GT4 cars showing up next to them on the even places. This grid arrangement is created to have all the cars capable of the overall victory joining on top of the field.
Following this procedure, the quickest SP3-GT4 car, the Endurance Autosport Lotus Exige (#174, Adam Bewsey/Daniel Plant/Tom Bradshaw/Yuji Shinohara/Andrew Dolan), will leave from second on the grid. Fourth will be last year’s overall winners, the Team ABBA with Rollcentre Racing BMW M3 V8 (#234, Richard Neary/Martin Short/Ian Stinton/Graham Coomes). Third in SP3-GT4 was the CWS Ginetta G55 GT4 (#178, Colin White/Philippe Salini/Patrik Matthiesen/Martin Thomas).
Touring cars from five makes battle in the A3 class. In qualifying, the BMW teams were to ones to beat. The Intersport racing BMW M3 CSL (#140, Kevin Clarke/Adam Hayes/Paul Black/Ryan Lindsay) gained the upper hand over the Cor Euser Racing BMW M3 (#71, James Briody/Peter Klutt/Cor Euser/Maarten Mus/John Farano) by a 0.120 second margin. A further 2.6 seconds down, the Synchro Motorsport Honda Civic Type R (#176, Alyn James/Daniel Wheeler/Martin Byford) settled for third spot.
The CUP1 class features four BMW M235i Racing Cup machines. Quickest was the QSR BMW M235i Racing Cup (#154, Jimmy de Breucker/Mario Timmers/Rodrigue Gillion/Jeffrey van Hooydonck) from the RMA Track Days – JJ Motorsport BMW M235i Racing Cup (#156, Leyton Clarke/Tony Rodriguez/James Little/Jason Baker) and the Sorg Rennsport BMW M235i Racing Cup (#151, Paul Abercrombie/William Lucas/Kye Wheatley/Rob Ellice/Sam Tordoff).
In the A2 category, the Area MS / Owens Endurance Honda Civic (#91, Jack Fabby/Carl Swift/David Vincent/Mark Harris) took a dominant 9.2 second lead ahead of their only rivals in class, the Team Sally Racing Renault Clio Cup III (#52, Martin Sally Pedersen/Peter Obel/Mads Christensen/Steffan Jusjong).