Tung, OAK Team Total Claim Inje Pole

Photo: John Dagys

OAK Racing Team Total continued its dominant run this weekend in Korea by claiming overall pole for Sunday’s Asian Le Mans Series season-opening Three Hours of Inje.

Ho-Pin Tung pedaled the Michelin-shod, No. 1 Morgan-Judd to a quick lap of 1:23.889 in Saturday’s 30-minute qualifying session.

The Chinese driver, who will share controls of the Onroak Automotive-built prototype tomorrow with David Cheng, edged out the No. 27 Eurasia Motorsport Oreca 03 Nissan of Richard Bradley by just 0.198 seconds for the top spot.

The two drivers both made late-session improvements after returning to the 2.614-mile circuit in the final five minutes. Bradey’s 1:24.087 lap would have put the Englishman on the pole if for not Tung’s late flyer.

Craft-Bamboo Racing was third quickest overall with its Ligier JS 53 Evo, the only remaining CN car this weekend following an accident for the ATL Wolf Asia Wolf GB08 in final practice.

Mathias Beche reeled off an impressive 1:27.799 in the Craft-Bamboo entry. The Swiss driver will team with Frank Yu and Kevin Tse tomorrow.

A quick lap by Tsuchiya Takeshi put the No. 90 Team AAI Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 on pole in the GT class. The Japanese driver’s 1:32.186 edged out the pair of the team’s BMW Z4 GT3 cars for the top qualifying position in class.

Six of the original eight entries recorded times, with the aforementioned Wolf GB08 of the Ang brothers withdrawing due to lack of spare parts after an accident, while the No. 7 Python Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 suffered chassis damage in a shunt by Zou Si Rui and will also not start.

The Three Hours of Inje takes the green flag Sunday at 3 p.m. local time (2 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John