Chatin Charges to Pole for Final Race of Season

Paul-Loup Chatin held off Oliver Jarvis and Job van Uitert to put IDEC Sport on pole position for Sunday’s European Le Mans Series season finale at Portimao.

In an LMP2 qualifying session that went down to the wire, Chatin made a decisive improvement on his final flying lap to end up with a leading time of 1:36.153.

The Frenchman, driving the No. 28 Oreca 07 Gibson, needed to improve because Jarvis shot the No. 22 United Autosports Oreca to the top of the leaderboard at his last attempt. Chatin ended up beating the British driver by just over half a second.

Van Uitert was also a candidate for the overall pole and led parts of the session.

The Panis Racing driver looked set to challenge Chatin with extremely close first and second sectors, but van Uitert lost nine-tenths in the final sector and ended up third.

IDEC Sport’s first pole of the campaign was good news for points leader Algarve Pro Racing which saw neither of its main title rivals gain an extra championship point.

James Allen put Algarve Pro fourth on the grid, ahead of Inter Europol Competition’s Olli Caldwell and Duqueine Team’s Neel Jani.

The preceding LMP2 Pro-Am qualifying session saw tire choice come into play as drying conditions opened the door for a strategy gamble.

One team that benefited was Proton Competition, which fitted Giorgio Roda with slick Goodyears. The Italian had a spin early on, but gradually increased the pace as a dry line emerged and timed it perfectly to post a session-leading 1:47.179 at the end.

Proton’s Pro-Am pole came after the German squad’s Oreca sustained heavy damage in an accident during the second half of Friday’s four-hour race at Portimao.

Roda pipped Racing Team Turkey’s Salih Yoluc by 0.137 seconds, while Tom van Rompuy took third for DKR Engineering.

In LMP3, Gael Julien took RLR Msport’s first pole of the season after the British squad opted to fit the No. 15 Ligier JS P320 Nissan with slick tires on a damp track.

Julien overcame the slick-shod Cool Racing Ligier of Marcos Siebert by just under half a second after squeezing in an extra lap by crossing the line moments before the checkered flag.

The GTE pole went to Ryan Hardwick who came out on top after a close battle on intermediate Goodyear tires with Takeshi Kimura and Christian Ried.

Hardwick set a late time of 1:58.574 to earn an extra point for the championship-leading Proton Competition crew, increasing their advantage to four points.

The American driver, who shares the No. 16 Porsche 911 RSR-19 with Alessio Picariello and Zacharie Robichon, beat Ried by just under four-tenths of a second.

Kimura then made a last-gasp improvement to split the Porsches with his Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

Sunday’s race starts at 1 p.m. local time (8 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Qualifying