Cadillac tops qualifying, Toyota #7 misses hyperpole

Text & Images: Rick Kiewiet

Alex Lynn set the best time in the first qualifying session that decided who will participate in tomorrow hyperpole session. 15 cars will battle it out for the pole position, but the Toyota #7 of Nyck de Vries will not be one them. The special red liveried GR010 finished 17th.

Dries Vanthoor also nearly missed out on hyperpole, as all of his first three laps were cancelled due to track limit infringements. His final attempt put him on top of the charts, after which only Lynn beat his 3.22:887, albeit only by 0.04s.

Besides the #7 Toyota both Aston Martins (16th and 22nd) and both Peugeots miss out on hyperpole, despite the latter putting in pretty decent performances in the first races of the season. The 009 Aston missed the cut by only 0.202 of a second. The final dropout was the #99 Proton Porsche in p20.

In LMGT3 the #46 BMW of Rossi, van der Linde and Al Harthy was fastest, but the Belgian BMW team also saw the #31 miss the cut. All manufacturers have at least one car in the hyperpole session. That includes Mercedes (with the #61) who missed a bit of pace in the first races of the season.

TF Sport goes to the hyperpole session as fastest with the purple #199. Most notable absentee in that session is probably Andre Lotterer in the #18 IDEC Sport. Basically a dry-run for next years' newcomer Hyudai/Genesis.