Roda Completes Perfect Record of Poles in Abu Dhabi

Proton Competition’s Giorgio Roda made it a clean sweep of pole positions for the Asian Le Mans Series season as he again dominated qualifying for this weekend’s season-closing 4 Hours of Abu Dhabi double-header.

The Italian driver’s best lap at the wheel of the No. 22 Oreca 07 Gibson in Saturday’s 15-minute session for prototypes was a 1:41.392, which put him 0.871 seconds clear of his nearest rival Jeremy Clarke in the No. 50 AF Corse Oreca.

Roda’s second-fastest time of 1:41.534 was over a second clear of the opposition, again led by Clarke.

Third-fastest was the second of the Proton cars, the No. 11 Oreca of Alexander Mattschull on a 1:42.402, followed by Michael Jensen aboard the championship-leading No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing entry.

Naveen Rao was fifth in the No. 24 Nielsen Racing car, but on second-fastest times the top five behind Mattschull and Jensen was completed by Francois Perrodo in the No. 83 AF Corse car, the Frenchman having been sixth-fastest overall.

The No. 91 Pure Rxcing Oreca was not allowed to participate in the session after causing an early red flag for getting stuck in the pit exit tunnel.

Class Poles for High Class, Winward Racing

Pole for both races in LMP3 went the way of the No. 49 High Class Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan as Thomas Kiefer set the best time of 1:49.635.

That was enough to outclass nearest rival Alexander Bukhantsov in the No. 7 Graff Racing Ligier by 0.298 seconds, while Kiefer’s second-best time of 1:49.635 was a shade under three tenths faster than Bukhantsov’s equivalent effort.

Third was the No. 15 RLR MSport car of Nick Adcock ahead of Jens Reno Moeller’s No. 26 Bretton Racing machine, with those positions reversed on second-best times.

Topping the 15-minute session for GT cars was the championship-leading No. 81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Rinat Salikhov with a best lap of 1:54.668.

A spin exiting the final corner for Rene Heremana Malmezac in the Prime Speed Sport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 triggered a red flag, the first of three that effectively curtailed the session and prevented Salikov’s best time from being challenged.

The second stoppage was caused when Morgan Tillbrook in the No. 27 Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 and the No. 87 Origine Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R of Bo Yuan came to blows just as the session was resumed.

Yuan was then involved in another incident with the No. 98 EBM Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Anderson Tanoto that caused the final red that ended the session.

Second-quickest was the No. 92 Manthey EMA Porsche of Ryan Hardwick 0.081 seconds slower than Salikhov, followed by Gabriel Rindone in the No. 89 EBM Aston Martin and Zhou Bihuang in the No. 2 Climax Racing Mercedes-AMG.

The constant disruptions meant not all cars set representative second-best times, with Zhou leading the way on a 1:55.794 ahead of Tillbrook’s 1:56.104.

Climax’s No. 14 car was forced to withdraw when Bronze-rated driver Lu Wei was struck by illness, reducing the field to 46 cars.

The opening leg of the 4H Abu Dhabi begins at 3 p.m. local time (6 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying (LMP2 and LMP3) / Qualifying (GT)