OAK Racing will start tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Sao Paulo from fourth and seventh positions in the LMP2 class after a typically ultra-tight qualifying session at Interlagos this afternoon.

Bertrand Baguette’s best lap of 1m27.275s aboard the Onroak Automotive designed and built #35 Morgan 2012 LMP2 was just 0.227sec shy of Stephane Sarrazin and the Starworks Motorsport HPD’s class benchmark, but good enough only for fourth on this occasion ahead of what promises to be a compelling fifth round of the season in Brazil. The Belgian ace will share the car with Dominik Kraihamer and new recruit Alex Brundle tomorrow.

Matthieu Lahaye and the #24 machine starts three places further back in seventh place thanks to a 1m27.818s lap. The car he shares with Jacques Nicolet and Olivier Pla was the fourth fastest of the WEC-registered entries and looks well set for a solid points haul tomorrow.

Both cars improved their times from this morning’s free practice session when they finished sixth and eighth fastest in class, #35 again heading #24. That progression should bode well for tomorrow, especially considering that both cars were considerably faster in race trim compared to qualifying during the previous round at Silverstone three weeks ago.

Sebastien Philippe, Team Principal: “We are a little bit disappointed at the qualifying result because I really think that Bertrand and the #35 car had the potential for pole position. In the end he missed it by less than 0.3sec and was hampered by traffic on his quick lap. Had he been able to put all of the sectors together I think he would have made it. As for the #24 car, the progression since yesterday has been good. It is tough to find the ideal set-up here but I am more confident for the race when we will be more consistent over a longer distance.”

Saturday’s six hour race begins at midday local time.

Source : OAK Racing