Michael Christensen believes his fast lap in qualifying for the TOTAL Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps was deleted due to an unfair track limit penalty.
The Danish driver, who will be sharing the #92 Porsche 911 RSR with fellow 2018 Le Mans winner Kevin Estre, qualified seventh in GTE Pro but told Motorsport Week that he thinks his flying lap was unfairly deleted.
"Well, we hoped for pole, we always do," said Christensen. "We believe we have a good car, we need the pole position. Unfortunately, that was not the reality. I didn’t have a great qualifying run. My fastest lap was deleted because of a track limit violation."
"But I feel it was not so fair, because I had to overtake the Ferrari that crashed in Eau Rouge. It was on the line into Blanchimont, where I had to overtake him. So I ran wide at the exit of Blanchimont, due to that overtake. I couldn’t even do it flat. Normally, they delete a lap time when you have an advantage, but I don’t think this was an advantage."
"Anyway, it was not a clean run, so I had to do another lap. Decent lap, Kevin did a good lap, P7, not where we want."
Despite a disappointing qualifying, the championship leader was still hopeful heading into tomorrow's race in the Ardennes, but is aware of the potentially difficult track conditions.
"Let’s see. I’m pretty optimistic. We know we have a good racecar, we have good tyres. We have a clear mind of what we want to achieve, also in terms of of strategy. I think it will not be a clean race, due to weather."
"Looking at the forecast, it’s gonna be quite tricky. It’s gonna be about not screwing up, and it could be quite easy to do so. So we have to stay cool, believe in ourselves and our performance."
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