Aitken Snatches Portimao Pole; Keeps Prema Waiting for Title

Jack Aitken claimed a last-gasp pole position for the European Le Mans Series season finale at Portimao and denied Prema’s attempt to seal the LMP2 title in qualifying.

Aitken made an improvement right at the end of Saturday afternoon’s 10-minute session to put Racing Team Turkey’s Oreca 07 Gibson just 0.072 seconds ahead of the Prema Oreca driven by Louis Deletraz, who settled for second on the grid.

Prema was hoping to secure the championship in its first ELMS campaign by taking the extra point on offer for pole, which would have given the Italian squad an unassailable 25-point lead with a countback advantage over the Panis Racing crew.

However, its points-leading drivers Deletraz and Ferdinand Habsburg were made to wait by Aitken, who also took the LMP2 Pro-Am pole for the TF Sport-run Turkey squad.

James Allen qualified third for Algarve Pro Racing on a time of 1:32.551, with Job van Uitert taking fourth in Panis Racing’s Oreca ahead of United Autosports’ Tom Gamble.

Allen held provisional pole after all 16 of the LMP2 drivers had completed their first flying laps, with Deletraz in second.

TDS Racing x Vaillante driver Mathias Beche then slotted in between the pair, before the field came into the pits for tire changes.

Deletraz went quickest on his new set of Goodyears, reeling off a 1:32.467 that put the Swiss driver above Allen, Beche and Aitken.

Despite going on to shave two-hundredths of a second off his benchmark time, Deletraz was unable to lower the bar enough to prevent Aitken from spoiling Prema’s party.

Aitken will share the Racing Team Turkey Oreca with Charlie Eastwood and Salih Yoluc, who lead the LMP2 Pro-Am standings by 22 points.

They only received an additional point in the overall LMP2 classification, rather than one for the Pro-Am division where crews must include a Bronze-rated driver.

Further down in the order, Beche qualified sixth for TDS, with Inter Europol Competition driver Pietro Fittipaldi in seventh and IDEC Sport’s Paul-Loup Chatin eighth.

Six of the Best for Jakobsen in LMP3

Malthe Jakobsen claimed his sixth consecutive LMP3 pole position to complete a sweep of the category’s qualifying sessions in ELMS this season.

The Danish driver set a time of 1:37.100 in the No. 17 Cool Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan, finishing 0.175 seconds ahead of Inter Europol Competition’s Guilherme Oliveira.

Oliveira briefly went ahead of Jakobsen but the Cool Racing driver responded to claim pole, representing the sixth additional point for the No. 17 crew this year.

Jakobsen, Maurice Smith and Mike Benham are now 18 points behind Oliveira, Nico Pino and Charles Crews in the LMP3 standings.

Kay van Berlo qualified third in the No. 3 United Autosports Ligier, with Sebastian Alvarez fourth for Duqueine squad DKR Engineering and Antoine Doquin rounding out the top five in the other Cool Racing Ligier.

Sarah Bovy claimed the first ELMS pole position for Iron Dames, and the first series pole for a woman, by leading the GTE qualifying session.

Bovy had a strong end to the session, producing a time of 1:41.888 that put her No. 83 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo above the No. 66 Ferrari by a margin of 0.028 seconds.

Ferrari teams occupied the top three positions as Diego Alessi took third for Rinaldi Racing, ahead of TF Sport Aston Martin driver Ahmad Al Harthy and Christien Ried in the points-leading Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19.

RESULTS: Qualifying