Aberdeen’s Ryan Sharp, driving his JetAlliance Aston Martin DBR9, was denied pole position for tomorrow’s fifth round of the FIA GT World Championship, the Spa 24-Hours in Belgium, in the final five minutes of the third qualifying session.
The 29-year-old Scot grabbed provisional pole by setting the fastest time in the first of Thursday evening’s two qualifying sessions with a best lap of 2mins 14.581secs.
But Sharp, runner-up in last year’s World GT Championship and partnered by Austrian ex-F1 star Karl Wendlinger, was pipped minutes before the finish of this morning’s final session by the Saleen S7R of Pedro Lamy.
“It’s a bit like Le Mans,” Sharp, already a double winner in the championship this year, explained afterwards. “Because it’s a 24-hour race pole really isn’t important in the overall scheme of things, but some people like it for the bragging rights.
“We’re more than happy because we know we’ve got the ideal race set-up which we established on Thursday evening. Friday was really all about just making minor tweaks. We didn’t even try to improve on our provisional pole time.”
In the highly-competitive GT2 class, the No51 AF Corse Ferrari F430 of Italian Thomas Biagi claimed provisional pole, just over a quarter of a second ahead of the No77 BMS Scuderia Italia Ferrari
Fifer Andrew Kirkaldy was the fastest Scot in GT2, clocking 2:22.490 in the lead CR Scuderia Ferrari F430GT to be 15th overall and fourth-fastest GT2 car.
The sister Ferrari of Dalgety Bay’s Gordon Shedden — a winner six days ago in the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park — and Chris Niarchos was 19th overall and eighth GT2 car with a best lap of 2:23.176.
Just ahead of Shedden was the Scuderia Ecosse car driven by Jamie Davies. The Broxburn-based team, led by Stewart Roden, clocked a best of 2:23.038 to be seventh-quickest GT2 and 17th overall.
JM