De Vries Takes G-Drive to Barcelona Pole

Photo: MPS Agency

G-Drive Racing will start Sunday’s European Le Mans Series season-opening 4 Hours of Barcelona from the pole, thanks to a flying lap by Nyck De Vries in qualifying.

The Dutchman made a late-session improvement of 1:31.788 in his No. 26 Aurus 01-badged Oreca 07 Gibson to edge out the No. 41 Team WRT Oreca of Louis Deletraz by 0.079 seconds.

He will share the Russian-badged entry with Roman Rusinov and Franco Colapinto, who is pulling double duty between Barcelona and Imola this weekend.

The top three qualifiers in LMP2 all set quicker times in their final laps, including a quick time by Will Stevens, who put the No. 65 Panis Racing Oreca third on the grid.

Ben Hanley, who held provisional pole in the No. 21 DragonSpeed Oreca, was demoted to fourth in the closing minutes.

It, however, was still the best of the LMP2 Pro-Am contestants with lineups featuring at least on Bronze-rated driver.

The No. 32 United Autosports Oreca of Job van Uitert completed the top-five overall, meanwhile.

LMP3 class pole went to the No. 3 United Autosports Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Duncan Tappy, who reeled off a 1:39.162 lap time.

It was 0.021 seconds quicker than the No. 15 RLR MSport Ligier of Malthe Jakobsen, with the second United entry set to line up third thanks to Wayne Boyd’s lap.

The best Duqueine D08 Nissan came from Laurents Hoerr, who qualified fourth in class in his No. 4 DKR Engineering entry.

Gianmaria Bruni claimed top pole honors in GTE, thanks to a flying 1:41.892 in his No. 77 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19 on his final lap.

The WeatherTech-sponsored Porsche was 0.149 seconds quicker than the No. 80 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Miguel Molina in second.

Rahel Frey qualified third in the sister Iron Lynx Ferrari ahead of Richard Lietz’s Proton Porsche, which also made a late session improvement.

Bruni, who will share the pole-winning car with Jaxon Evans and team boss Christian Reid, missed the pit lane entrance on his cool-down lap and parked his car on the track following the checkered flag.

The 4 Hours of Barcelona gets underway Sunday at 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John