The leading duo of the Le Mans Series takes up the second round on the legendary circuit of Spa-Francorchamps from a promising position: Porsche works driver Marc Lieb (Germany, Felbermayr-Proton) qualified the 911 GT3 RSR that he shares with Richard Lietz (Austria) on the second spot on the grid in the GT2 class. With 32 points, title defenders Lieb/Lietz hold a clear lead after their season-opening victory in Le Castellet. A total of four Porsche pilots made the top ten of the GT2 class in qualifying.
“Second on the grid is excellent,” said Marc Lieb. “We hadn’t really counted on pole position here because our 911 is better suited to performing over the whole distance rather than one lap. And it’s even better that we are not even one-tenth of a second off the pole-sitter. We also profit from the fact that our fuel consumption in the race is lower. In Le Castellet we made one less pit stop compared to our rivals.” Richard Li-etz thought: “Our car is already set-up perfectly from the season-opener and we made just few minor refinements for here. It’s going to be a great race.”
Porsche factory pilot Patrick Long (USA) qualified the sister 911 GT3 RSR fielded by the Felbermayr outfit on sixth position. Long shares the cockpit with Martin Ragginger (Austria) and team owner Christian Ried (Germany). At their first race together in Le Castellet, the trio managed an excellent second place. “We are totally pleased,” sum-marised Long. “Our Porsche is reliable, it has perfect balance and is highly efficient. What more do you want?”
The French duo driving for IMSA Performance Matmut, works driver Patrick Pilet and team owner Raymond Narac, take up the 143-lap race from eighth on the grid. Por-sche junior Marco Holzer (Germany) planted the 911 GT3 RSR run by the Belgium ProSpeed Competition squad on ninth position at his first qualifying session in the Le Mans Series. On the infamous 7.004 kilometre roller coaster track in the Ardennes, the 21-year-old was just one second shy of three-time champion Lieb. “We’re not quite there with our set-up,” said Holzer. “Our aim in the race is to finish and bring home the points.”
The two Porsche works drivers lent to Audi, Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Romain Dumas (France), showed themselves in a good light. Bernhard claimed the second grid position in the Audi R15 TDI in the LMP1 class and was the fastest of the three Audi pilots in qualifying. With Mike Rockenfeller (Germany), Bernhard and Dumas contest the Le Mans 24 Hours in the Audi sports prototype. In this way they have the chance to go for victory in the overall classification.
Source : Porsche