ELMS Paul Ricard: Nathanael Berthon beats Harry Tincknell to pole

Harry Tincknell had put the Jota Zytek-Nissan on pole for all three 2014 ELMS rounds so far, but GP2 convert Berthon's 1m47.837s in the Murphy ORECA-Nissan at Ricard was just under three tenths better than Tincknell could manage.

Berthon shares the Murphy car with British Formula 3 race winner Pipo Derani for the first team this weekend, alongside team regular Rodolfo Gonzalez.

Ex-Formula 1 driver Christian Klien qualified third in the Morand Morgan-Judd, ahead of Franck Mailleux's Race Performance ORECA-Judd.

ELMS debutant Arthur Pic began his dabble with endurance racing by placing the Sebastien Loeb Racing ORECA sixth, behind the championship-leading Signatech Alpine entry.

SMP's Ferraris took pole in both GTE and GTC with Andrea Bertolini and Luca Persiani respectively.

It was an all-Ferrari top three in GTE, with the #80 Kessel and #55 AF Corse cars next up, but Kevin Korjus was SMP's nearest rival in GTC in ART's McLaren.

Leading qualifying positions:

Pos  Cl   Drivers                      Team/Car                     Time       Gap
 1.  P1   Derani/Berthon/Gonzalez      Murphy ORECA-Nissan          1m47.837s
 2.  P1   Dolan/Tincknell/Albuquerque  Jota Zytek-Nissan            1m48.126s  +0.289s
 3.  P1   Klien/Hirsch/Ragues          Morand Morgan-Judd           1m48.420s  +0.583s
 4.  P1   Frey/Mailleux                Race Performance ORECA-Judd  1m48.594s  +0.757s
 5.  P1   Chatin/Panciatici/Webb       Signatech Alpine-Nissan      1m48.956s  +1.119s
 6.  P1   Capillaire/Roda/Pic          Loeb ORECA-Nissan            1m48.958s  +1.121s
 7.  P1   Thiriet/Badey/Gommendy       TDS Ligier-Nissan            1m49.055s  +1.218s
 8.  P1   Bacheta/Shulzhitskiy         Greaves Zytek-Nissan         1m49.413s  +1.576s
 9.  P1   Schell/Leutwiler/Coleman     Pegasus Morgan-Nissan        1m50.868s  +3.031s
10.  P1   McMurry/Mowlem               Greaves Zytek-Nissan         1m51.502s  +3.665s
Other class poles:
11.  GTE  Bertolini/Shaitar/Zlobin     SMP Ferrari                  1m55.691s
21.  GTC  Ladygin/Basov/Persiani       SMP Ferrari                  1m57.336s