The gaps are even smaller than usual in Japan in the intensely-competitive LM P2 category. One of the OAK Racing Morgan-Nissan LM P2s, no. 35 driven by Bertrand Baguette, Martin Plowman and Ricardo Gonzalez, will start from pole on Sunday. Olivier Pla, Alex Brundle and David Heinemeier Hansson set the fourth-fastest time in the no. 24 OAK Racing Morgan-Nissan, while Jacques Nicolet and Keiko Ihara are tenth. It is OAK Racing’s first pole position in the FIA World Endurance Championship since the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours.
The sixth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship is taking place on the beautiful Mount Fuji Speedway in Japan. In addition to the usual three works Morgan-Nissan LM P2s, made by Onroak Automotive, the construction arm of OAK Racing, Chinese squad KCMG entered a fourth Morgan-Nissan for the first rendezvous of the championship in Asia this year.
Three hard-working free practice sessions helped the three OAK Racing driver line-ups and the team to find the right setups. Throughout, the Morgan-Nissans shod with Dunlop tyres, continued to up the pace and set the fastest time in LM P2 in P3 this morning thanks to no. 24 driven by Olivier Pla, Alex Brundle and David Heinemeier Hansson.
In qualifying two drivers per car must go out and the classification is then established by combining the average speed of the two fastest laps of each one. First to take to the track were Olivier Pla in no. 24, Bertrand Baguette in no. 35 and Keiko Ihara in no. 45. The Frenchman and the Belgian set the pace and emerged quickest at the end of their timed laps with no. 24 only 6/100s in front of its sister car.
They were relayed by Martin Plowman and Alex Brundle who had pole position in their sights. Jacques Nicolet took over from his Japanese team-mate in no. 45 in the Art Car colours of the 90th anniversary of the Le Mans 24 Hours.
At the end of yet another hotly-contested session with several improvements on the final lap no. 35 of Baguette-Plowman-Gonzalez clinched pole, while no. 24 of Pla-Brundle-Heinemeier Hansson was fourth less than two tenths of a second off first place! Nicolet-Ihara were tenth quickest in LM P2. KCMG rounded off a great performance by the Morgan-Nissan LM P2s with the sixth-quickest time on the pace of the leaders. The 6 Hours of Fuji looks like being a very open race even if the weather may reshuffle the cards!
Sébastien Philippe, Team principal: “We’re happy with this very good overall result. All the drivers did a fantastic job. However, it doesn’t really mean a lot for the race as it looks like we may have bad weather on Sunday. Nonetheless it was important to set pole. Both drivers put on stunning performances and that gives no. 35 an extra point. No. 24 was quick enough to have done better than fourth, but the session was very close with less than two-tenths covering the first four on an average of four laps! Jacques and Keiko set very respectable times. The overall level is very high and they too had a good qualifying session.”
Bertrand Baguette, no. 35 Morgan-Nissan LM P2: “It’s fantastic to be on pole, as after our times in free practice it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. We made the right changes between free practice and qualifying. It was very close between Olivier and I, and it was up to Martin to make the difference – which he did! It’s pole and an extra point and that’s a great boost for the morale of the mechanics and the drivers. Now, we’ve got six hours’ racing ahead of us!”
Martin Plowman, no. 35 Morgan-Nissan LM P2: “Bertrand and I talked about all the circuits on which we thought we could set pole and this was certainly the most unlikely! We really had big problems at the start of free practice. Sometimes you take the car out of the truck and it’s right from the word go: here that wasn’t the case. We did a lot of work with our engineers after the first free practice and in the next two sessions things got better and better. And we ended up with a pole we weren’t expecting! It’s five minutes’ happiness. We have to concentrate on the race, and it looks like it’s going to rain!”