Genesis take shock first pole for WEC 6 Hours of Barcelona
Mathys Jaubert has given the No.17 Genesis crew pole position for the World Endurance Championship (WEC) 6 Hours of Spa with a stellar lap.
The No.8 Toyota was second in the hands of Ryo Hirakawa, with the sister No.19 Genesis in third, despite stopping on track twice with mechanical issues.
Qualifying
The session went green 15 minutes later than expected, with track repairs at the final corner taking up some time. As opposed to LMGT3 qualifying, this session had no restriction on driver choice, nor did the following Hyperpole session. It was 12 minutes for the 17 cars to attempt to get into the top 10 for Hyperpole.
The No.19 Genesis Magma Racing car of Mathieu Jaminet didn't make it very far once he left the pit lane. He lost power from his combustion engine, and was driving out of the pits on just the hybrid system. He did quickly get moving though, and back up to qualifying speed.
It took the drivers quite a while to heat the tyres up, something the Hypercars have been struggling with all weekend.
But the times started to come in with five minutes left on the clock, the Ferraris came first going top, then the Toyotas, Alpines and Manthys Jaubert going top in the No.17 Genesis, before his teammate found pace after his issue earlier in the session.
Ryo Hirakawa in the No.8 Toyota went quarter of a second quicker than both, before Jaminet shot back to the top.
With two minutes to go, eyes turned down to the elimination zone which contained, both Aston Martins, the No.51 Ferrari, both BMWs and both Peugeots.
The No.009 of Alex Riberas was 11th - first in the elimination zone - was only 0.03 of a second off Robert Kubica in the No.83 Ferrari in 10th.
On the final laps, Giovinazzi couldn't improve, Harry Tincknell in the No.007 had a lap that was within 0.006 seconds, before being held up by a Peugeot on his final lap of the session. No one else found more time, so that was qualifying finished.
The No.009 and No.007 will share 11th and 12th, ahead of the No.51 in 13th. Then came the No.20 BMW, the No.94 Peugeot followed by their sister cars - the No.15 BMW ahead of the No.93 Peugeot.
That left Jaminet on top of the session that he also broke down in. With the other Genesis in third, they both made it to Hyperpole, with both Toyotas, both Cadillacs, two of three Ferraris and both Alpines all made it into the top 10.
Hyperpole
10 minutes on the clock to decide pole position, 10 cars and 10 drivers to sort it all out.
It seemed to be about seven minutes until the driver could properly fire up the tyres, because that's when the lap times started coming through in both sessions.
Kubica was the first to go top, before his teammate Antonio Fuoco went better in the No.50 Ferrari, but his lap was deleted for track limits.
Then came the two Genesis cars, Jaminet going quickest briefly before Jaubert put the No.17 on top with a 1:30.329. Hirakawa came next, going just 0.007 of a second slower than Jaubert.
Jaubert went a tenth quicker on his next lap, a 1:30.166 holding him on top. The No.19 had an issue in the first sector, looked to be a repeat of what ailed them at the beginning of qualifying. Jaminet was able to keep going though, just brief yellow flags at the end of sector one.
No one else was able to improve, so Jaubert handed Genesis their first ever pole position as a manufacturer. The No.8 was second, with the second Genesis car managing third despite their mechanical issues.
The No.35 Alpine was fourth in the hands of Charles Milesi, with Will Stevens sixth in the No.12 Cadillac. Seventh was the No.83 of Kubica, ahead of Victor Martins in the No.36 Alpine. Rounding out the top 10 was the No.50 Ferrari of Fuoco, No.7 Toyota of Nyck De Vries and the No.38 Cadillac of Jack Aitken.
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