Tincknell, Priaulx Take GTE-Pro Pole at Silverstone

Photo: Drew Gibson/Ford

Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx took GTE-Pro pole position for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing on Saturday ahead of tomorrow’s FIA World Endurance Championship season-opening Six Hours of Silverstone.

The Ford drivers qualified by a margin of 0.809 seconds ahead of the No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE of Sam Bird and Davide Rigon.

Tincknell, Priaulx and Pipo Derani will therefore start the No. 67 Ford GT from the front of the GTE field in Sunday’s race, with a combined lap time of 1:56.202 from the two qualifying drivers.

A decision to change one side of tires of the Aston Martin Vantage GTEs didn’t pay off, with Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim only managing third in the No. 95 car, while the sister car was fifth.

Olivier Pla and Stefan Muecke slotted in fourth in the No. 66 Ford.

Aston Martin Racing did manage to secure the GTE-Am class pole however, with Paul Dalla Lana and Pedro Lamy setting an average lap time of 1:59.562 in the No. 98 Aston Martin.

This put them over one second clear of the Spirit of Race Ferrari of Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci and Miguel Molina.

The Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR will start from third in GTE-Am, in a poor qualifying session for the Pro-class Porsches which left the two mid-engined cars last in their category.

Tomorrow’s race kicks off at 12 p.m. local time.

RESULTS: Qualifying

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.