Proton’s Roda Takes Sweep of Sepang Poles

Giorgio Roda delivered Proton Competition a sweep of pole positions for the opening double-header of the new Asian Le Mans Series season at Sepang.

The Italian driver steered the No. 22 Proton Oreca 07 Gibson to a best lap of 1:53.197 in Saturday morning’s 15-minute qualifying session, outpacing nearest rival, AF Corse’s Jeremy Clarke, by 0.231 seconds to bag pole for the first race later on Saturday.

A second-fastest time for Roda of 1:53.382 means the No. 22 car that he shares with Vlad Lomko and Tom Dillmann will also start Sunday’s second race from the top spot.

Alexander Malykhin qualified third for his LMP2 debut in the No. 91 TF Sport-run Pure Rxcing car with a time 0.464 seconds shy of Roda’s benchmark.

However, his second-fastest time was faster than that of Clarke in the No. 50 AF Corse Oreca, meaning the No. 91 will start second for Sunday’s race, with the No. 50 third.

Alexander Mattschull was fourth on both fastest and second-fastest times in the No. 11 Proton car, 1.007 seconds slower than Roda, followed by Francois Perrodo in the second of the AF Corse cars and DKR Engineering’s Georgios Kolovos.

Algarve Pro Racing’s top contender was the No. 25 Oreca of Michael Jensen in seventh.

Class Poles for Ultimate, GetSpeed

Ultimate scored both poles in LMP3 courtesy of the best times set by from Stephane Lemeret in the No. 35 Ligier JS P320 Nissan.

Lemeret’s best time of 2:02.088 put him 0.388 seconds clear of Nick Adcock’s No. 14 RLM MSport Ligier, with Jens Reno Moeller 0.463 seconds away from the top spot in the third-placed No. 26 Bretton Racing entry.

On second-fastest times, Lemeret’s effort of 2:02.144 was enough to take Sunday pole, with the top three qualifiers lining up in the same order.

In the GT class, Steve Jans delivered pole for GetSpeed with a best time of 2:05.092 in the No. 9 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

That was enough to edge out Massimiliano Wiser in the No. 28 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 by just 0.035 seconds as the Italian fell just short of Jans with a late improvement.

However, Wiser’s second-fastest time of 2:05.253 was quicker than Jans’ 2:05.317, giving Kessel pole for Sunday’s second race.

Third-fastest was the No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Dustin Blattner, followed by Rinat Salkihov in the No. 81 Winward Mercedes-AMG and Yudai Uchida in the No. 57 CarGuy Ferrari, both on fastest and second-fastest times.

Saturday’s opening leg of the 4 Hours of Sepang starts at 2 p.m. local time (1 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Qualifying