Stippler secures Spa 24 Hours pole for Audi
Frank Stippler topped the final qualifying session to secure pole position for the 24 Hours of Spa for the #2 WRT Audi he shares with Nico Muller and Stephane Ortelli.
Photo by: Audi Communications Motorsport
With each driver being allowed two flying laps, the circuit was busy and traffic management reared its head early on as Vincent Abril's HTP Motorsport Bentley Continental GT3 was impeded by Andre Lotterer’s Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS. Both were summoned by the stewards.
Another talking point of the weekend has been track limits and nine of the 20 drivers through to the final superpole session were being investigated after the session, which may well shuffle the order.
Stippler, though, was unaffected as his neat and tidy lap put his R8 LMS quickest by just 0.017s from Kevin Estre’s Von Ryan Racing McLaren 650S (under investigation) and Andrea Piccini’s Kessel Racing-run Ferrari 458 Italia, also under investigation for track limit abuse.
Alvaro Parente’s McLaren was fourth, also under invesigation, while Maxime Soulet’s works Bentley was fifth with teammate Steven Kane only 10th after a gravelly moment at Les Combes.
Local hero Laurens Vanthoor’s WRT Audi was sixth while fellow Belgian Maxime Martin was 12th in his Marc VDS Racing BMW Z4, one place behind the Phoenix Audi of three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Andre Lotterer.
But with the stewards hard at work, the starting order may shuffle before the start of the race on Saturday.
Qualifying Top 10 - driver in bold set time:
Pos. | No. | Drivers | Car | Time | Gap |
1 | 2 | Frank Stippler Stephane Ortelli Nico Muller |
Audi | 2'18.130 | |
2 | 58 | Shane van Gisbergen Rob Bell Kevin Estre |
McLaren | 2'18.147 | 0.017 |
3 | 11 |
Michael Broniszewski Alessandro Bonacini Michael Lyons Andrea Piccini |
Ferrari | 2'18.176 | 0.046 |
4 | 59 | Bruno Senna Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Alvaro Parente |
McLaren | 2'18.254 | 0.124 |
5 | 8 | Maximilian Buhk Maxime Soulet Andy Soucek |
Bentley | 2'18.350 | 0.220 |
6 | 1 |
Rene Rast Laurens Vanthoor Markus Winkelhock |
Audi | 2'18.412 | 0.282 |
7 | 18 | Oliver Morley Sean Johnston Maro Engel Bernd Schneider |
Mercedes | 2'18.427 | 0.297 |
8 | 46 |
Markus Paltalla Lucas Luhr Nick Catsburg |
BMW | 2'18.451 | 0.321 |
9 | 84 | Harold Primat Vincent Abril Mike Parisy |
Bentley | 2'18.482 | 0.352 |
10 | 7 | Guy Smith Andrew Meyrick Steven Kane |
Bentley | 2'18.492 | 0.362 |
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