BARNICOAT DENIES ALL-KIWI TEAM OF POLE AT THE BEND

Ben Barnicoat takes Asian Le Mans Series pole at The Bend – Photo: InSyde Media

Englishman Ben Barnicoat has taken pole position for tomorrows 4 Hours of The Bend in the Thunderhead Carlin Racing car.

Driving the #45 car alongside Harry Tincknell and Jack Manchester, Barnicoat was pleased to get pole after a mistake earlier in the session.

“On my first lap I had a good first and second sector but then made a mistake in Turn 25, the track temperature was much higher in comparison to practice so the car was feeling a lot more on edge and that just got the better of me, ran a bit wide,” Barnicoat told Auto Action.

“The pole lap didn’t feel quite as good as my first lap, but it was still good enough to get the job done and be quickest to get pole position.

“Luckily we had an advantage over everyone else and we will be starting from the best place to be.”

Starting alongside the British trio is the all Kiwi #1 Eurasia Motorsport car of Shane van Gisbergen, Nick Cassidy and Daniel Gaunt, with Cassidy qualifying less than 0.2s off pole around the 7.77km circuit.

The G-Drive Racing car of Roman Rusinov, James French and Leonard Hoogenboom will start from third.

The highest placed Australians were Aidan Read and Nick Foster who with former Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi qualifying the #36 Eurasia car will find themselves starting from the inside of the third row in fifth.

Former Formula 2 driver Arjun Maini took pole in the LMP2 Am class with his teammates John Farano and New Zealander Andrew Higgins they will start from sixth.

Colin Noble took the honours in LMP3 – Photo: InSyde Media

It was an interesting LMP3 Qualifying session also, in the end it was Colin Noble who took pole position for ACE1 Villorba Corse.

Australian Ricky Capo will start the race third in class after his teammate David Droux narrowly missed out on pole position.

Garth Walden was the only Australian to qualify the car in the LMP3 class and will start the 4 Hour alongside fellow Aussie Peter Paddon and Austin McCusker from fifth on the grid.

Davide Rigon took pole in GT – Photo: InSyde Media

In an exciting GT Qualifying session it was #27 HubAuto Corse driver Davide Rigon who shares the Ferrari 488 GT3 with Australian Liam Talbot and Brazilian Marcos Gomes who stole pole position as the chequered flag flew.

Rigon eclipsed Come Ledogar in the Car Guy Ferrari 488 who came into the pitlane before the end of the session. A last lap effort from Jens Klingmann put Astro Veloce Motorsports BMW M6 into third in class.

Former Formula 1 driver Rio Haryanto had a number of off track excursions and finished the session in fourth position.

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