Tom Blomqvist admitted he ‘cocked up’ on his quickest lap during qualifying for the Six Hours of Bahrain, but was still quick enough to take pole position even though his fastest lap was deleted.
Blomqvist took the pole aboard the #28 JOTA ORECA 07-Gibson late Friday afternoon. The Briton only just beat out Filipe Albuquerque’s #22 United Autosports ORECA, who set a flying lap at the very end of the short qualifying session to jump up to second place.
Antonio Felix da Costa, Blomqvist’s JOTA, team-mate was third in class. The top three in the fiercely competitive session was separated by just over two-tenths of a second.
Bloqmvist had been on form all throughout Friday at the Bahrain International Circuit, topping both the second and third practice sessions in LMP2 prior to taking pole position. The single point on offer for qualifying means that JOTA extend their points advantage over Team WRT from one to two points.
“I’ve got to thank the team, huge credit for them,” Blomqvist said. “We rolled off the truck with a good car, but it wasn’t amazing and we made some really good tweaks overnight. That transformed our car for today. I’ve been super confident, super happy with it all day long.”
“I was quite confident going into qualifying. My first run was good. Second run, I don’t know what I was trying to do but I pushed a little bit too hard and cocked up the first sector. Nonetheless, it was thankfully just enough to keep the pole position.”
Ultimately, the gap between Blomqvist and Albuquerque came down even further when Blomqvist had his fastest lap deleted. His second-quickest lap, a 01:49:932, was still quick enough for pole, but Albuquerque’s late flyer now meant that the gap between first and second in LMP2 was a mere 0.062s
“The number 22 [car] had a pretty massive comeback in that session,” Blomqvist said of Albuquerque. “We can’t rule anyone else out. It’s going to be a tough, tough race. This track is proving really difficult with our cars this weekend.
“It’s probably one of the first times we’ve had a proper race here during the day, so that’s going to throw a proper curveball. It’s going to be difficult to manage so we’ve definitely got that in the back of our minds. We have to really take care of our tyres.”
“After many years of racing, you should get your head around a track relatively fast. Obviously, the car makes my life a little bit easier.”
Blomqvist was not the only driver to have a lap time deleted in LMP2. High Class Racing’s Robert Kubica, initially seventh in class, also lost his fastest lap for a track limit infringement. As a result, the Danish squad has been dropped back to tenth in class, only ahead of the Richard Mille Racing Team squad.
As a result, Team WRT will start the six-hour enduro from seventh place in class.
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