Cairoli Captures 4H Portimao Pole in Tight Qualifying

Matteo Cairoli beat Mathys Jaubert and Nick Yelloly to pole position for the 4 Hours of Portimao at the end of a tightly contested qualifying session that saw the entire top LMP2 class separated by under a second.

Cairoli reeled off a time of 1:30.771 at the wheel of the No. 9 Iron Lynx-Proton Oreca 07 Gibson, which was enough to beat the No. 18 IDEC Sport machine driven by Jaubert by 0.043 seconds.

Yelloly slotted into third aboard the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca, joined on the second row by Job van Uitert in the second IDEC Sport entry.

Esteban Masson completed the top five in the No. 48 VDS Panis Racing car, ahead of Vector Sport’s Pietro Fittipaldi and the No. 24 Nielsen Racing Oreca in the hands of Ferdinand Habsburg.

The overall top ten was rounded out by the No. 47 CLX Motorsport Oreca of Manuel Espírito Santo, United Autosport driver Gregoire Saucy and Pedro Perino in the No. 34 Inter Europol car.

Reshad de Gerus, who took eleventh for Duqueine Team, was 0.709 seconds off Cairoli’s pole time.

The No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca notably did not set a time after Theo Pourchaire caused an early red flag, hitting the barriers at Turn 10.

In LMP2 Pro-Am, Proton Competition driver Giorgio Roda snatched class pole position away from AO by TF’s PJ Hyett with a last-gasp effort.

Hyett initially laid down the benchmark aboard the No. 99 Oreca and appeared to have pole secured, only for Roda to lay down a 1:32.467 in the No. 77 machine that allowed the Italian to leap ahead by just 0.044 seconds.

Rodrigo Sales was third in the No. 29 TDS Racing machine, followed by Nielsen Racing’s John Falb and the No. 3 DKR Engineering driven by Georgios Kolovos.

Koizumi Delivers First Series Pole for Corvette Z06 GT3.R; RLR Loses LMP3 Pole

In the LMGT3 class, Hiroshi Koizumi delivered the first series pole for the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R in a curtailed session while Gillian Henrion dominated LMP3 qualifying for RLR M Sport.

Koizumi steered the No. 82 TF Sport-entered machine to a best lap of 1:43.446, just 0.006 seconds faster than the No. 59 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Clement Mateu.

Michael Birch took third in the No. 23 United Autosports McLaren 720s GT3 Evo, with the British racer leaping up to third mere moments before the session came to a premature end after Charles-Henri Samani spun the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 into the Turn 7 gravel and caused a red flag.

Martin Berry was fourth in the No. 63 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, ahead of the No. 57 Kessel Racing Ferrari in the hands of Takeshi Kimura and the Celia Martin-driven No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 GT3 R in sixth.

While the LMP3 pole initially went to the No. 15 RLR M Sport Ligier JS P325 Toyota in the hands of Gillian Henrion, the car was found to be in non-compliance of the diffuser width and height in post-qualifying scrutineering.

It handed the class pole to the championship class-winning No. 17 CLX Motorsport Ligier, which initially qualified second by Adrien Closmenil.

The 4 Hours of Portimao, the final race of the European Le Mans Series season, kicks off Saturday at 2:30 p.m. local time (9:30 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: Qualifying

This report was updated at 5:19 p.m. EST to reflect a change in the LMP3 qualifying results