Portimao Saturday Notebook

***The No. 22 United Autosports Oreca 07 Gibson was handed a three-place grid drop for the 6 Hours of Portimao after Phil Hanson impeded Bent Viscaal at Turn 2, as the Prema driver started a flying lap in qualifying. Hanson went third-quickest in the LMP2 session.

***The other Prema Oreca, which Mirko Bortolotti put on pole, had an eventful start to qualifying when the engine cut out in the pit lane. Bortolotti said: “I tried to restart it a couple of times through power cycles and talked to the team and said ‘guys, I can’t restart the engine’. So at that stage obviously my mechanics came to the rescue. Luckily they managed to fire it up quite quickly so I could get out of the pits without losing that much time.”

***Prema was later fined €1,000 ($1,100 USD) for its mechanics removing the No. 63 Oreca’s engine cover in the fast lane of the pits to deal with the engine issue.

***Another €1,000 fine was handed out to fellow LMP2 team Inter Europol Competition which fitted its car’s tires in the garage rather than in the working area of the pit lane.

***Cadillac had plans for Action Express Racing to join the Hypercar grid at the 6 Hours of Spa but its request for an entry was not granted based on a lack of space. AXR is bringing a Cadillac V-Series.R to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.

***GM sports car racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser told Sportscar365: “We would have been thrilled to be able to bring more [cars to Spa]. We have to work very closely with the series partnership and what they could fit.”

***When asked why a second Chip Ganassi Racing car got the nod over an AXR entry for Spa, Klauser said: “It was the decision we made for the program, and making sure that we had all the infrastructure set up. We will have members of Action Express there.”

***Cadillac considered adding a third driver alongside Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais for CGR’s additional Spa entry according to Klauser. Scott Dixon, who is normally part of that crew in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup, will be absent due to an NTT IndyCar Series clash. Sportscar365 understands that the lineup will stay at two drivers.

***Brendon Hartley’s lap time of 1:30.171 is a new Hypercar track record at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve. The Kiwi improved upon the previous record, set by Matthieu Vaxiviere in qualifying for the 2021 8 Hours of Portimao, by 0.193 seconds.

***Hartley explained that Toyota invested more effort into qualifying after Ferrari beat it to pole position at the Sebring season opener. “I think there was maybe a bit more focus here on trying to get the car as optimal as possible for qualifying,” he said. “My feeling is that maybe Ferrari went the opposite way.”

***Despite improving on the 2021 pole time, Toyota Gazoo Racing’s technical director Pascal Vasselon suggested that the Portuguese circuit is slower than it was two years ago, due to the fading impact of resurfacing work carried out shortly before the WEC’s previous visit.

***Sebastien Buemi will start the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid as usual on Sunday and is set to undertake his normal driving stints during the race, despite being on the mend from breaking bones in his hand in a Formula E accident at the Sao Paulo E-Prix. “We and he were a bit concerned in FP1, but after FP2 and FP3 it seems OK,” said Vasselon.

***Toyota returned fire on Ferrari in Hypercar qualifying after the Italian squad took pole at Sebring. Ferrari indicated that it focused more on race pace in the Portimao build-up.

***Ferrari driver James Calado said: “We could have shown more potential than we did in qualifying. After the third Free Practice session there was a change in the overall balance of the car, which was especially noticeable in the first corner and in the main braking sections, phases in which I missed the chance to set a good lap on the first attempt while the tires were still fresh.”

***Charlie Eastwood’s helmet has a special sticker in memory of rally driver Craig Breen, who was killed in a testing accident on Thursday. “He was in between myself and my brother in go-karts in age,” Eastwood told Sportscar365. “We grew up our whole lives going through racing in Ireland and then onto England and Europe. Somebody sent me a picture yesterday of me, probably five, six years old and him beside me. It’s such a loss and when you see all the comments on social media, you realize nobody had a single bad word to say about him.”

***Similarly, LMP2 squad Vector Sport has added a tribute message on the wing mirror of its Oreca. Vector driver Ryan Cullen, like Breen, hails from Ireland.

***Bortolotti’s 0.001-second margin over Vector Sport’s Gabriel Aubry is the smallest qualifying deficit recorded in WEC LMP2 qualifying to date.

***Stewards deemed Gustavo Menezes to be “wholly at fault” for turning around Alpine Elf Team driver Memo Rojas in FP3, which resulted in a left rear puncture for the latter driver’s car. Menezes was given a suspended drive-through penalty for the infraction.

***Rojas hopes that Alpine can achieve a top-five result at Portimao after struggling on its LMP2 return at Sebring. “We probably don’t have the fastest car yet but we’re working on it, trying to find the best setup,” he said. “I think we are already more competitive. We shortened the gap to the top cars. There is a lot of work to do still, but hopefully it can be better than Sebring.”

***Proton Competition has ordered a pair of Type-992 Porsche 911 GT3 Rs. Team boss Christian Ried told Sportscar365 that despite tentatively speaking with Multimatic about the new Ford Mustang GT3, the team’s goal is to continue its deep relationship with Porsche after the GTE platform expires later this year.

***Ried added that he wouldn’t want to drive in the WEC’s LMGT3 class next year, stating that he does not like racing in cars that have ABS. However, he expressed interest in future outings aboard Proton’s LMP2-class Oreca.

***Chip Ganassi Racing’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship team manager Jamie Coates is on-site at Portimao this weekend helping oversee the team’s first European race outing. Coates has been replaced by the team’s global director of race operations Mike O’Gara at Long Beach.

***O’Gara, from Long Beach, told Sportscar365: “The WEC program is fairly autonomous at this point. We have a couple of guys over in [Portimao] just to help. We felt with the first WEC/European race, we’d give our WEC folks a little extra support.”

***The 6 Hours of Portimao takes place at 12 p.m. (7 a.m. ET) on Sunday. Click Here for broadcast information.

Davey Euwema and John Dagys contributed to this report