KISS' QUALIFYING DOMINANCE CONTINUES AS SMITH BEGINS RESURGENCE WITH CLASS POLE
It was another flawless display from Norbert Kiss to claim his 11th pole of the season as Bradley Smith looks to be back on pace with Chrome pole.
Overall pole never looked in threat as Kiss topped all three qualifying sessions to secure another front row start. It was Sascha Lenz who put it all together in Q3 to jump Jochen Hahn, who had been a solid P2 throughout the first two sessions, to share the second row with Kiss.
Hahn, who was four tenths off Lenz’ time, will start third on the grid, alongside José Eduardo Rodrigues.
Antonio Albacete almost missed out on a Q3 appearance as both Chrome drivers Smith and Mark Taylor showed rapid pace around the Le Mans Bugatti Circuit. It was marginal, but at one stage both Taylor and Smith had Q3 positions whilst Albacete had to push for the extra tenths to avoid elimination.
Albacete will start P5, with Chrome pole sitter Smith alongside him in sixth. The pace had looked tricky for Smith throughout Q2, but a brilliant 2:07.341 saw him jump into Q3.
Albacete benefitted from Steffi Halm being out of contention in Q2 due to two track limits penalties. Had she set a time quick enough for the final qualifying session, it would have been Albacete who was eliminated. Instead, Halm will start down in P12 behind most of the Chrome racers.
The Chrome title battle rages on, with Taylor and Hecker lining up just behind Smith on the fourth row. Luis Recuenco will take P5 in Chrome, with Stefan Kursch having a great qualifying to take P6. Race-by-race entry Simon Reid driving well to secure P7 in class, overall P11.
Craig Reid, John Newell and Christian Ruppert were the last of the classified qualifiers. Newell had a difficult time with track limits on the drying circuit, suffering the same fate as Halm after picking up two penalties.
René Reinert, Luke Garrett and Steffen Faas did not take part in the qualifying session, making it only 15 trucks on the track.
Garrett’s FP2 ending turbo failure turned out to take too long to fix in time for qualifying, whilst Faas continues to battle reliability issues with his freightliner. Reinert also had a turbo-related issue that saw him unable to take to the track for qualifying. It is understood that Reinert and Garrett should join the Race 1 grid, but unfortunately another engine change for Faas means he is unlikely to start the first race of the weekend.
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