VIR ALMS: Klaus Graf gives Pickett another pole
Klaus Graf claimed pole in the Pickett HPD as the American Le Mans Series made its debut at Virginia International Raceway
In the first ALMS event since the series' 2014 merger with Grand-Am was announced, Graf set a best time of 1m35.434s in the car he shares with Lucas Luhr.
Pickett's title rival Dyson Racing was 0.932 seconds behind with Guy Smith at the wheel of the #16 Lola-Mazda, which is running KERS for the first time this weekend.
Martin Plowman took LMP2 pole for Conquest, as Level 5's Christophe Bouchut had a couple of incidents while pushing to depose the Morgan.
LMPC delivered an epic fight, with five cars in contention for pole. In the end it was settled by just 0.001s - which was all that split Colin Braun (CORE Autosport) and Kyle Marcelli (Merchant Services).
GT looked similarly close at first, until Johannes van Overbeek broke clear to earn his and the Extreme Speed team's first ALMS pole.
The Ferrari's pole margin was three tenths of a second over Dirk Muller in the lead BMW. The Corvettes were next up, with the Flying Lizard Porsche and the second BMW completing a group of six cars within 0.3s.
In GTC, Damien Faulkner took another pole for Green Hornet.
Pos Cl Drivers Team/Car Time 1. P1 Luhr/Graf Pickett HPD 1m35.434s 2. P1 Dyson/Smith/Mowlem Dyson Lola-Mazda 1m36.366s 3. P1 Marsal/Patterson/Dyson Dyson Lola-Mazda 1m37.031s 4. P2 Plowman/Heinemeier Hansson Conquest Morgan-Nissan 1m38.043s 5. P2 Tucker/Bouchut Level 5 HPD 1m38.465s 6. P2 Tucker/Diaz/Gonzalez Level 5 HPD 1m39.093s 7. PC Bennett/Braun CORE FLM 1m41.006s 8. PC Marcelli/Downs Merchant FLM 1m41.007s 9. PC Popow/Kimber-Smith CORE FLM 1m41.269s 10. PC Junqueira/Drissi RSR FLM 1m41.411s 11. PC Junco/Franchitti PR1 Mathiasen FLM 1m41.475s 12. PC Burgess/Sanchez/Lux Merchant FLM 1m42.131s 13. PC Richard/Ende Dempsey FLM 1m43.351s 14. GT Sharp/van Overbeek Extreme Speed Ferrari 1m45.988s 15. GT Muller/Summerton RLL BMW 1m46.359s 16. GT Gavin/Milner Corvette 1m46.409s 17. GT Magnussen/Garcia Corvette 1m46.497s 18. GT Bergmeister/Long Flying Lizard Porsche 1m46.583s 19. GT Neiman/Holzer Flying Lizard Porsche 1m46.601s 20. GT Muller/Auberlen RLL BMW 1m46.680s 21. GT Henzler/Sellers Falken Porsche 1m48.014s 22. GT Miller/Maassen Miller Porsche 1m48.319s 23. GT Sweedler/Bell Alex Job Lotus 1m48.940s 24. GT Brown/Cosmo Extreme Speed Ferrari 1m51.510s 25. GTC LeSaffre/Faulkner Green Hornet Porsche 1m52.426s 26. GTC Cisneros/Bleekemolen NGT Porsche 1m52.796s 27. GTC Cumming/Valiante JDX Porsche 1m53.151s 28. GTC MacNeil/Keen Alex Job Porsche 1m53.339s 29. GTC Benitez/Benitez/Bleekemolen NGT Porsche 1m53.988s 30. GTC Faieta/Avenatti Competition Porsche 1m54.828s 31. GTC di Guida/Pumpelly TRG Porsche
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
FIA still chasing answers over bizarre Shanghai F1 grass fires
How a Shanghai to Sheffield journey paved the way for China’s F1 hero
Hamilton expects to lose positions if F1 China sprint is dry
Verstappen 'deserves' fourth in China F1 sprint qualifying with wet struggles
Ranking Derek Warwick’s top 10 greatest races
Why Peugeot had no choice but to revamp its radical Le Mans Hypercar
How motorsport is embracing the opportunities of AI
The experiment WEC could revisit to magnify its boom period
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments