Mikaël Grenier and Winward Racing to start 21st for the 1000kn at Paul Ricard
VERY COMPETITIVE QUALIFYING AS EXPECTED AS GRENIER SETS THE 11TH FASTEST TIME IN Q2
It may be a six hour race and one might think qualifying is not as important. But with 47 cars to take the start and the field being ultra competitive, you want certainly want to start toward the front of the field.
The track proved to be very busy with all the cars on track and finding enough space to get you fastest lap in. The three 15 minutes sessions gave each drivers a chance to get out there and maximized their performance in order to offer their team a good starting position.
For Winward Racing, the first to go out was Russell Ward who set a time 1:55.564 that placed the #57 Mercedes AMG GT3 in 34th place and 11th in the Silver Cup class. The fastest Q1 lap set by the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport of Sheldon van der Linde with a 1:53.872.
Mikaël Grenier took part in Q2 and set his best time of 1:54.584 on his fifth lap that gave him the 11th position(second in Silver Cup) in the session. The quickest time went to Marco Mapelli in the #63 Orange 1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo with a 1:53.826; the top 16 cars within a second.
And in Q3 it was Philip Ellis’ turn to set his fastest lap for Winward. His time of 1:54.215 was good enough for 12th overall(third in Silver Cup) in the session. The quickest time set by Andrea Caldarelli in the #63 Orange 1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo with a 1:53.719.
When averaging the three drivers’ time, #57 Winward Racing will be starting in 21st place and sixth in class with a time of 1:54.787.
Pole went to #63 Orange 1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo with an average time of 1:53.937 followed in second place by #71 Iron Lynx Ferrari 0.193s behind and third went to #4 HRT Mercedes with 0.198s from pole. The first 22 cars are within a second.
Qualifying results here
The 1000km race will start at 6pm local time(12pm EST) and you can watch it live on Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS YouTube channel.
Watch for Mikaël Grenier to take the wheel during the second stint which should be the third and fourth hour of the race.
Image: Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS
