SPA - After seeing its streak of pole positions in the FIA World Endurance Championship end at Silverstone, Porsche bounced back in style by sweeping to an impressive one-two finish in qualifying for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.
Porsche debuted its low downforce aero kit in Spa on Friday to prepare for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, and it proved to be potent from the outset as the no. 1 car shared by Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard set the pace in qualifying.
Under unusually sunny skies at Spa, Hartley set the early pace despite reporting a clutch issue before Bernhard went faster still on his run, resulting in a two-lap average for the car of 1:55.793.
Porsche’s Silverstone-winning no. 2 car followed in P2 with Marc Lieb and Neel Jani sharing driving duties, albeit seven-tenths of a second down.
The battle for P3 between Toyota and Audi appears to be closer than ever at Spa, with just three-tenths of a second separating all four cars. Traffic for the Audis allowed the Toyotas to edge ahead, with the no. 6 car finishing third ahead of Audi’s no. 8. Toyota’s no. 5 followed in P5 ahead of the sister no. 7 Audi.
In LMP2, G-Drive Racing secured class pole thanks to Roman Rusinov and Rene Rast as their two-lap average was half a second clear of the field. The no. 36 Signatech Alpine team followed in P2, while Manor enjoyed a strong showing to get its cars third and fifth on the grid, with the Jota Sport-run no. 38 Gibson car splitting them.
GTE Pro’s qualifying saw the new Ferrari 488 GTEs excel once again as AF Corse stormed to a one-two in class with the no. 71 of Sam Bird and Davide Rigon taking pole. The duo claimed victory at Silverstone in their first race together, and managed to edge out the sister no. 51 Ferrari by three-tenths of a second in the first qualifying session.
Aston Martin Racing finished as the best of the rest with its no. 97 Vantage V8 slotting into P3 ahead of the two Ford GTs in fourth and fifth, both seven-tenths down on the pole time. Porsche struggled once again as the no. 77 911 RSR ailed to P7 in class, 2.3 seconds off the pace.
AMR made up for its GTE Pro qualifying defeat in GTE Am as the no. 98 car took pole by 1.8 seconds in the hands of Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana. AF Corse followed in a distant second place, while the Abu Dhabi Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR followed in third.
The 6 Hours of Spa kicks off at 2:30pm local time (8:30am ET) on Sunday.
For full results from Spa qualifying, click here.