Weerts Recalls Stressful End to Suzuka 1000km Qualifying

BMW Team WRT driver Charles Weerts has recalled the stressful closing stages of Saturday evening’s qualifying session for the Suzuka 1000km, admitting he was “frustrated” as red flags forced him into a do-or-die effort to grab pole at the wheel of the No. 32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

Weerts was the last driver to qualify the No. 32 car in the final segment of qualifying, following on from co-drivers Raffaele Marciello and Kelvin van der Linde, whose combined efforts had put the car on provisional pole after the second session.

However, before the Belgian had the chance to set a representative lap time, there were two stoppages, the first caused by Takuro Shinohara going off at Turn 1 and the second for Patrick Pilet stopping at Degner Curve.

By the time the session resumed for the final time, there were just over three minutes left on the clock, with Weerts at the back of the long queue of cars that headed back on the circuit owing to WRT’s position as the pit garage nearest the pit entry.

However, an aggressive out lap allowed Weerts to begin his one and only flying lap with 20 seconds to spare, with his 2:01.357 effort proving enough to keep pole.

“Initially we seemed to be quite comfortable thanks to the great lap times set by my teammates, but with the red flags, we were not able to get a relevant lap time on the board and we were much further down the ranks,” Weerts told Sportscar365.

“Since time was really short at the end, it was only possible to do one lap, and there was no time to back off and get a gap [in the traffic]. Also the tires were not fully ready because we were having to stop and start all the time.

“It was a bit of a hustle, I did a big send in the last chicane to get behind the right car, which was the sister [No. 31] car, because I know fast they are. The lap luckily was clean and it was fast enough to get pole position.”

Asked if he was always confident that he would have enough time to set a representative lap, Weerts replied: “I was not so happy, I was a bit frustrated.

“The car felt so good and I wanted to use the peak of the tire, and you never know what can happen — there can be another red flag, or someone puts gravel on the track, you can have traffic, track limits… so many things can happen.

“But in the end everything went well and I am happy for this.”

Van der Linde Plays Down WRT’s Victory Chances

For his part, van der Linde felt the conditions played into the hands of BMW and believes the race will be much tougher owing to what he believes is the superior long-run pace of other manufacturers, notably Porsche and Mercedes-AMG.

“We were surprised by the competitiveness of the car, and being on pole position is always great,” hee told Sportscar365. “I think the colder conditions helped us.

“But we are still cautious because our weakness has been the long runs. If I compare to some other cars, they were able to sustain their lap times a lot longer than us, and that’s where this race is won. You need to be competitive for a full hour.

“The Porsche looks strong, they’ve always been good at tire management, and the Mercedes as well. Those were the main contenders.

“We’ll see if we can hone the car for the race, as we went very aggressive for the qualifying setup, but we have some question marks.”

Van der Linde was part of the winning WRT crew that won the previous IGTC race at Suzuka in 2019, when he took overall honors in what was then a ten-hour event alongside Dries Vanthoor and Frederic Vervisch driving an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo.

“I have missed this race so much, and I think every driver that has been here this week has had only good things to say about the track,” said the South African.

“Especially for me as defending champion, I’m hungry for the back-to-back. Let’s see.”