The No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR 19 will start the final GTE race tomorrow from pole position after a great 1m58.692s tour of the circuit from Sarah Bovy.
“Once again she did it — we are very proud of her,” said Michelle Gatting, Bovy’s teammate in the Porsche. “It’s important for what we are doing with this project. It’s emotional because of the last race of GTE. It’s not easy, we showed great pace and let’s hope we can finish it.”
Bovy’s time, set with just under five minutes to go, was challenged in the final minutes of the session, but nobody could snatch the top spot from the Belgian, who finishes the season with three pole positions to her name.
Liam Talbot, the late addition to D’Station Racing’s driver lineup, came closest with a 1m58.982s. The time came on his final flying lap, vaulting the No. 777 Vantage from fourth to a spot on the front row.
Talbot’s lap dropped the ORT by TF Sport Aston Martin to third on the grid after Ahmad Al Harthy’s efforts. Takeshi Kimura steered the No. 57 Ferrari to fourth.
Ben Keating, who briefly sat at the top early in the session, will start tomorrow’s race from fifth in the title-winning No. 33 Corvette Racing C8.R.
“More than where we qualified, I’m happy with the lap time.,” Keating said
“That was one second quicker than anything than did in my qualifying simulation. There is so much tire degradation here that it’s a balance between taking care of the tire because we have to race on these same tires and trying to hit the peak of the tire.
“I think the reason I was able to put that lap together was because it was my third one and on the peak of the tire.
I kept trying to repeat it, and I couldn’t. It just wasn’t there in the tire. It’s fascinating how my two laps that were closest to that were seven-tenths of a second off.
Furthermore, it’s worth that much time. I’m happy with the time but also with the result. Tyler (Neff, race engineer) said before qualifying that he thought a top-five result was possible, and he nailed it.”
Tomorrow’s 8 Hours of Bahrain will start at 2pm local time.
