Will Stevens Scores ELMS Pole for Panis-Barthez Competition at Silverstone

It'll be Panis-Barthez Competition starting on pole in this afternoon's 4 Hours of Silverstone, with EuroInternational and Proton Competition heading LMP3 and LMGTE respectively.

Will Stevens pipped Jean-Eric Vergne in the #26 G-Drive Racing to put his Panis-Barthez Competition Ligier on pole position earlier, thanks to a 1:43.690 from the Brit. JEV had looked to be the favourite for pole, following the team's dominant performance throughout free practice, but the Frenchman will have to settle for second on the grid. Lining up on row two will be the #21 Dragonspeed thanks to Ben Hanley (another driver doing both the ELMS and WEC races this weekend), and the #29 Duqueine Engineering Oreca. Anders Fjordbach in the #49 High Class Racing machine put in a 1:45.374 landing him 7th - the highest placed Dallara on the grid.

The #35 SMP Racing team were reported to the stewards for putting their car in the garage during the session, but no decision has been made regarding this report.

It's LMP3 pole for EuroInternational (a favourite team of the media following their delivery of fudge yesterday) thanks to a 1:55.508 from Mattia Drudi. Ross Kaiser brought the 360 Racing Ligier in just behind Drudi, five-hundredths of a second behind, with the #3 United Autosports of Sean Rayhall finishing third on the grid. Matthieu Lahaye wrung a 1:56.079 out of the #17 Ultimate car, making him the highest placed Norma in the field. Championship leaders RLR Motorsport line up alongside Ultimate in sixth position.

It's a Porsche top three in LMGTE with the two Proton Competition cars beating the Gulf Racing machine of Ben Barker to a front-row lockout. Dennis Olsen in the #77 put in a 1:58.704 which turned out to be just enough to keep him ahead of Matteo Cairoli in the #88 - by a mere six-hundredths of a second. Behind the Porsches came a pair of Ferraris in the form of the #55 Spirit of Race and fan favourite JMW Motorsport. Ebimotors and Krohn Racing finish off the LMGTE grid for this afternoon.

The Four Hours of Silverstone starts at 14.30, watchable on YouTube. 

This article was originally published on Overtake Motorsport.
Shared with permission from the author.
Cover Image: ELMS/JEP