Ford secured a front lockout on home turf for the fifth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of the Americas, with Gianmaro Levorato and Ben Tuck securing a 1-2 in the Proton-Competition Ford Mustangs.
They were more than six tenths quicker than their closest rival, the #95 United Autosports McLaren of Sean Galael.
The initial qualifying session to determine the drivers who go through to Hyperpole started with the skies still spitting rain. The initial lap times were more than 20 seconds off the lap times in the dry from the practice sessions.
Eventually, as the rain gradually eased and the track improved, these times came down by 13 seconds. Yasser Shahin, in the #31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3, went top, followed by his WRT BMW teammate Ahmad Al Harthy, in the #46 car. Petru Umbraescu was third, in the #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3.
Going out were the #88 Proton Ford Mustang GT3 of Stefano Gattuso, the #81 TF Sport Corvette of Tom Van Rompuy, the #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Martin Berry, the #92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R of Ryan Hardwick, Thomas Flohr in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari, Derek Deboer in the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage GT3, the sister #21 AF Corse Ferrari of Francois Heriau, and the #85 Iron Dames Porsche of Celia Martin.
However, it turned out Umbraescu had taken the chequered flag twice in the session, resulting in his exclusion from Hyperpole. This promoted the #88 Proton Ford of Gattuso to Hyperpole, joining the team car.
By the time the investigation into the above had finished and the Hyperpole session started, it had begun to rain again. This meant there was a scramble to get a lap early in Hyperpole, lest track conditions deteriorate.
Gianmarco Levorato, in the #88 Ford, was the early pacesetter, with a 2:10.142. Sean Galael, onboard the #95 United Autosports McLaren, then went faster, with a 2:10.109.
Levorato’s teammate Ben Tuck, in the sister #77 Ford, then went quicker, with a 2:08.556. Levorato, though, was on a quicker lap and came through to go more than half a second quicker, with a 2:08.020.
Tuck improved further on his final lap, with a 2:07.683. But Levorato wasn’t going to let pole go that easily, and beat Tuck’s final lap with a stunner of his own, 0.018 faster than his teammate.
Sean Galael took third in the #95 McLaren, 0.617 off Levorato. Valentino Rossi claimed fourth in the #46 WRT BMW, while Jonny Edgar was fifth in the #33 TF Sport Corvette.
Sixth was Sebastien Baud in the #59 United Autosports McLaren was sixth, followed by Finn Gehrsitz in the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus. #60 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG’s Fran Rueda took eighth, with the fifth row of the grid going to Timur Boguslavskiy in the #31 WRT BMW and Zach Robichon in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage.
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