No.23 Aston Martin grab LMGT3 pole for the 6 Hours of São Paulo

Credit: DPPI

The No.23 Aston Martin took pole position for the 6 Hours of São Paulo in the hands of championship debutant Kobe Pauwels. The No.79 will share the front row with the green-

liveried car, and the No.87 Lexus will start third.

As it happened

Qualifying

Since he set his first lap, Peter Dempsey in the No.34 Team Turkey by TF Corvette sat comfortably atop the timing sheets and was consistently improving while the rest of the field was constantly swapping in and out of the elimination zone.

With three minutes on the clock, both the Corvettes were brought back to the garage, while the No.34 was still comfortably on top, the No.33 was in the elimination zone, and the championship leaders were out of qualifying. The No.69 BMW was parked in the garage a minute later, but were second fastest, also comfortably.

As the clock ticked down, the tyres seemed to have completely worn out, as most did not improve on their final few laps.

The No.34 Corvette was the fastest with a 1:33.808 lap time. The No.69 BMW were second, almost four tenths behind, and the No.77 Ford were third, almost seven tenths behind the leaders.

The top ten made it through to Hyperpole, and those eliminated were, in order: No.91 Porsche, No.33 Corvette, No.54 Ferrari, No.10 McLaren, No.27 Aston Martin, No.78 Lexus, No.21 Ferrari, No.58 McLaren.

Hyperpole

Credit: DPPI

In Hyperpole, the No.23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin was the one to beat as Kobe Pauwels consistently set the fastest laps, and with five minutes left to go, were one of the two cars faster than the fastest time set in Qualifying, with the other being the No.87 Lexus.

With two minutes on the clock, the No.79 Iron Lynx Mercedes went second fastest, only two tenths behind the No.23.

Similar to Qualifying, the tyres wore out towards the end and most did not improve in the final couple of minutes.

The No.23 Aston Martin crew grabbed their first pole position, courtesy of World Endurance Championship debutant Kobe Pauwels. The No.79 Mercedes starts from second. The No.87 Lexus and the No.69 BMW occupy the second row and the No.77 Ford round up the top five.

The No.61 Mercedes will start sixth ahead of the No.92 Porsche. The No.88 Ford will start from the outside of the fourth row while the No.32 BMW and the No.34 Corvette will start side by side in ninth and tenth.

It will be a long race tomorrow and rain is expected to hit the track. While starting order might not dictate most teams' performances tomorrow, nobody has won the 6 Hours of São Paulo from outside the front row. The race starts tomorrow at 11:30 AM BRT.