The Porsche customer teams have secured solid starting positions in the qualifying for the nine-hour race in Kyalami. The 911 GT3 R fielded by GPX Racing takes up the final round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge season from the fifth grid spot. In Friday’s Pole Shootout, works driver Matt Campbell turned his flying lap on the 4.522-kilometre Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit in 1:42.274 minutes.
For the race, the Australian shares the cockpit of the No. 12 car with the two Frenchmen Mathieu Jaminet and Patrick Pilet. In the drivers’ championship, the trio currently ranks second just one point behind the leaders. Porsche heads to the fourth and final round holding the lead in the manufacturers’ classification.
The other two Porsche 911 GT3 R missed out on making it into the shootout of the six fastest contenders. The crew sharing Dinamic Motorsport’s No. 54 car used the qualifying session to prepare for the race. After the balance of the 500-hp GT3 vehicle fielded by the Italian customer squad proved not ideal in the previous sessions, Kévin Estre trialled the setup changes in Q1 with more fuel on board. The lag that the Frenchman experienced due to the unfavourable conditions could no longer be offset.
New Zealander Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor from Belgium, however, planted their car on the tenth grid spot in Q2 and Q3. The pair leads the drivers’ championship.
“Somehow there was a glitch with our car at the beginning of the weekend,” commented Ester. “Because of the poor vehicle balance, we tried a different setup in the first qualifying sessions. Unfortunately, that took us in an even worse direction. Our car oversteers on many sections of the track. The rear gets unstable out of the blue.
“Our team will now check everything again thoroughly before the start of the race. We hope that we can get rid of the ‘gremlins’ in time for the season finale. If we manage that, everything is still possible in a nine-hour race, even after a disappointing qualifying.”
The identical vehicle campaigned by Lechner Racing (No. 9, Pro-Am class) and driven by South Africans Saul Hack and Andre Bezuidenhout as well as Dylan Pereira from Luxembourg claimed P11.
The nine-hour race at Kyalami takes off on Saturday, 12 December, at 11am local time (10am CET). The website www.intercontinentalgtchallenge.com airs the entire season finale via a free live stream. This website also provides live timing.
Qualifying result
1/ Farnbacher/v. d. Zande/Baguette (D/NL/B), Honda NSX GT3 #30, 1:41.581 minutes
2/ Gounon/Soulet/Pepper (F/B/ZA), Bentley Continental GT3 #7, 1:41,723 minutes
3/ Farfus/Catsburg/van der Linde (BR/NL/ZA), BMW M6 GT3 #34, 1:41.891 minutes
5/ Campbell/Pilet/Jaminet (AUS/F/F), Porsche 911 GT3 R #12, 1:42.274 minutes
10/ Bamber/Vanthoor/Estre (NZ/B/F), Porsche 911 GT3 R #54, 1:43.151 minutes
11/ Hack/Beziudenhout/Pereira (ZA/ZA/L), Porsche 911 GT3 R #9, 1:44.961 minutes
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