Derani Scores Fuji Pole for BBT

Photo: Vision Sport Agency

Pipo Derani has secured pole position in the Asian Le Mans Series Four Hours of Fuji for BBT, narrowly beating Thomas Laurent in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session.

Derani posted a lap time of 1:32.102 towards the end of the session, and so the No. 37 Ligier JS P2 Nissan he shares with Anthony Xu Liu and Davide Rizzo will start Sunday’s race from the front.

Laurent was just 0.157 seconds slower in the faster of the two Jackie Chan DC Racing x Jota entries ahead of Jazeman Jafaar in the team’s second Oreca 05 Nissan.

KCMG’s Josh Burdon took the LMP3 class pole with a lap time of 1:35.255 which was faster than two of the LMP2 cars.

Ye Hong Li qualified the Taiwan Beer GH Motorsport car second in class, meanwhile. The five Ligier JS P3 Nissans all out-qualified the field’s sole Ginetta LMP3 entered by TKS.

FIST-Team AAI locked out the GT front row with Jesse Krohn beating Marco Cioci to the class pole.

Krohn set a 1:37.861 in his BMW M6 GT3 while Cioci was 0.194 seconds slower in the team’s new Ferrari 488 GT3.

The Four Hours of Fuji will get underway at 12:20 p.m. local time on Sunday.

RESULTS: Qualifying

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.