Qualifications – 6 Hours of Austin – Porsches Continue Their Invincibility in Qualifying
Porsche is decidedly unbeatable in qualifying: for the eighth consecutive time, a Porsche will start in pole position. It will even be an all-Porsche front row since car no. 18 is ahead of no. 17. They are ahead of both Audis and both Toyotas.
The 20-minute session began under a blazing sun and a heat of 33°C. However, the various teams were not able to fully enjoy this session as it was cut short by a few minutes due to the red flag caused by the track breakdown of Oreca No. 47.
Consequently, the track was very crowded, and the LMP1 cars had to fight even harder to try to get a clear lap. In this game, it was the No. 18 of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, and Marc Lieb that came out on top, thanks in particular to a very nice lap by Neel Jani. It was all the more challenging for the team as they had to face a problem with their hybrid system at the beginning of the session, which fortunately could be fixed in time. They managed to open up a small gap of 164 thousandths of a second to get ahead of their teammates in the No. 17, Brendon Hartley, Timo Bernhard, and Mark Webber.
Behind, there was a battle between the two Audis but at a respectable distance from the Porsches since the No. 8 of Lucas di Grassi, Loïc Duval, and Oliver Jarvis was more than 1.3 seconds off the polemen’s time of the day. They managed to widen the gap by more than three-tenths on their teammates in the No. 7.
Toyota has been consistent with previous races, meaning they are limited to fighting among themselves. As often since the start of the season, the world champions have focused on their race pace, knowing they don’t have the pure performance to compete on a single lap. Thus, the No. 1 is 2.7 seconds off the day’s best time, with just under two-tenths of a second ahead of the No. 2.
