© American Le Mans Series
There were dark clouds on Friday afternoon over the Lime Rock Park area when qualifying for the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix was about to start and with the threat of rain during the session made the teams flock to the track.
As soon as the green flag was shown for the GT cars Patrick Long in the #45 Flying Lizard Motorsport Porsche 997 GT3 RSR and Jaime Melo in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT sprinted out of the pit and began a battle for pole position.
With Long first out on the track he posted the first provisional pole time, but Melo almost immediately posted a quicker time. Dominik Farnbacher was the next one to set a quickest time but the German probably knew his time would not last with the charging Porsche and Ferrari still out on the track.
The next time Long crossed the line the American indeed posted an even faster lap, but he wasn’t able to fend off Melo who posted a 54.744. Wolf Henzler and Farnbacher moved into second and third, with the former going off moments later. Melo and Long were still bumper-on-bumper on the track, until Long made a mistake and ended up on the grass with the right side wheels of his Porsche. David Murry meanwhile moved his Ford GT into 3rd place, with Long dropping down the order to eight. Müller spun his BMW, but recoverd quickly.
At the halfway point Melo was in the pit, with Long back on track trying whatever he could do to take back the provisional pole time. On his first attempt the gap was still 0.101s, but on the next lap, his eleventh, Long managed to go faster and posted a 54.729, a rather interesting line through the chicane included! This was the signal the Risi Competizione squad needed and Melo was sent out again.
The Brazilian really went for it in his final attempt and, presumably after seeing Long’s way of handling the chicane, took an even more straight line through it. As the #62 Ferrari passed the line the timing screen showed 54.665. Risi Competizione had done it and recaptured the pole position. Wolf Henzler tried to attack, but his Porsche went just over the curbs and the German nearly lost his car. As he came back in the session had effectively come to an end.
Minutes later the LMP cars were set to get out on the track, with the dark clouds increasing in size. Brabham was the first car out on track, with all LMP1 and LMP2 cars following his example. The Australian went for it and it was quickly visible that the Patrón Highcroft Racing team had set-up the car to the max, with smoke coming from the tyres as they rubbed the bodywork in the corners.
On his first flying lap Brabham posted a 48.9 in his #9 Acura ARX-02a, however Adrian Fernandez in the LMP2 Acura ARX-01b went a bit quicker! A lap later Brabham set a 47.75. Unfortunately for Brabham the time was not validated as it was set about a second after the red flag came out due to the Autocon Lola stalling out on the track.
As the session was restarted Brabham seemed to stall his Acura but he quickly recovered and got out of the pit in front of the field again. He immediately went after a quick time again and posted a 47.594. By then Simon Pagenaud in the de Ferran Motorsports #66 Acura ARX-02a was also posting fast times and closed in on Brabham, the gap staying at two to three tenths of a second.
Fernandez, still third fastest, spun his car but fortunately managed to recover quickly before the race director had to act. At the front Pagenaud and Brabham kept battling, but while Brabham had used the best of his tyres, Pagenaud was able to go fast. After setting a 47.098, already good enough for pole position, the French driver went one quicker and posted a 46.971.
As small drops of rain began to fall the Patrón Highcroft Racing team sent out Brabham once more. The combination of worn tyres and increasing rain however meant that Brabham was unable to improve his time and rather than risking a damaged car or tyres he chose to come in. Pole position for Pagenaud and the de Ferran team.
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