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WEC: Toyota Takes maiden pole of the season at Portimão, LMP2 top spot falls to Prema by 0.001s
Toyota Gazoo Racing dominated the qualifying session for the 6 Hours of Portimão, round two of the year’s FIA World Endurance Championship season, claiming its first pole of the season owing to Brendon Hartley
Hypercar
- Toyota Gazoo Racing dominated qualifying as the No.8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid Hypercar claimed its first pole position of the season
- Brendon Hartley has beaten the sister car driven by Kamui Kobayashi with a lap of 1m30.171s, 0.273s ahead of his stablemate
- No.50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P will start tomorrow’s race in third position as Nicklas Nielsen set his best lap of 1m31.596s
- Ferrari AF Corse locked out the second row of the grid as James Calado qualified the No.51 Ferrari 499P fourth overall
- Porsche Penske placed fifth and seventh with Kevin Estre and Frederic Makowiecki working the wheels of the pair of the Porsche 963s in qualifying
- The No. 94 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8 Hypercar went sixth-fastest as Nico Mueller clocked the best lap of 1m32.517s
- The Cadillac V-Series.R Hypercar driven by Richard Westbrook placed in eighth position
- The second Peugeot 9X8 driven by Paul di Resta was ninth, ahead of the Glickenhaus and Floyd Vanwall entries.
LMP2
- Mirko Bortolotti took a dramatic pole in LMP2 after going from the back to the front in a last-ditch pole lap
- The No.63 Prema-entered car started the session being worked on in the pit lane after a late issue occurred as the session went underway
- Bortolotti then set a lap that was deleted, before he eventually eclipsed the Vector Sport car of Gabriel Aubry by the tiniest of margins
- Aubry continued his excellent form after topping two of the free practice sessions but lost out on pole
- No.22 United Autosports car driven by Phil Hanson will start tomorrow’s race third in class, ahead of the No.48 Jota-entered Oreca-Gibson, in qualifying driven by Yifei Ye
- Starting fifth will be Inter Europol Competition car, owing to Albert Costa’s best lap of 1m34.586s
- The second of the United Autosports cars was sixth as Oliver Jarvis qualified the No.22 machine
- The top six covered by 0.0287s
LMGTE Am
- The No.33 Corvette Racing Chevrolet CorvetteC8.R with Ben Keating at the wheel took pole position in what was another thrilling LMGTE Am qualifying session
- Keating lapped in 1m41.362s to wrest the top spot from Sebring polesitter Sarah Bovy
- The Iron Dames Porsche placed second as Bovy missed out on the pole by 0.217s
- Third was the No.21 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo driven by Diego Alessi who was in contention for the pole throughout the session despite making his first FIA WEC appearance of the season in Portimão.
- The No.54 AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Flohr qualified in fourth despite having one of its laps deleted
- The highest placed Aston Martin was Ahmed Al Harthy in the Oman Racing Team by TF Sport in fifth