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Portland International Raceway

05/08/2001

Qualifying

Report

© Tom Kjos

Portland, Oregon, USA--The GTS and GT cars were out just before 6:00 PM local time for their 20 minute qualifying session, or at least some of them were. This is more and more getting the look of F1, at least in GT. The Corvettes were out early in GTS, followed quickly by Hans Konrad in his Saleen S7R and both Vipers.

In GT it was the Kyser, Barbour, and Petersen Porsches soon after the bell, while Alex Job Racing, PTG and BMW Motorsport sat on pit lane. With five minutes gone in the 20 minutes session, the two PTG BMWs got anxious first, Bill Auberlen and Boris Said rolling out in tandem, timing their exit of the pit lane to follow a faster Corvette, but clear of the slower Porsches already on the track. Bill Auberlen drew first blood, putting a 1:13.407 in the books, the second of two consecutive class record laps. That stood for all of a little more than a minute, until Boris Said thrashed his #6 GTR around the course in 1:13.291. By this time, both McKenna AJR Porsches were on the track, Christian Menzel out first in the #22 white and yellow GT3-RS, an early 1:14.138 (his third lap), but already third to the two BMWs. Christian wouldn't be able to improve that, but teammate Sasha Maassen soon got in between the BMWs with a sub-1:14. Sasha's lap 4 trip of 1:13.783 will be the best the Porsches will do today, but BMW is not done....JJ Lehto finally leaves pit row about halfway through the session, and begins to climb the charts. It takes four to get under the magic 1:14 necessary here to even think about a challenge. The GT record, set by Dirk Müller in a Barbour Porsche GT3-R is 1:15.155, is a time that six cars will best here. JJ goes faster yet on his fifth lap, but still not enough, so goes for six. His 1:13.331 is just short of Boris' early time, but nips Auberlen for second in class. GT will line up BMW, BMW, BMW...well, you get the idea. The Alex Job Porsches are close in 5th and 6th, the rest are not. We haven't heard the last from Porsche this weekend, however. "The BMW's qualify better that we do, so we're just saving the tires for the race," said Sascha Maassen, who qualified his #23 McKenna GT3-RS in fourth place.

Boris Said captured his first career pole, and PTG only its second in ALMS, putting in perspective how long the team has struggled to match the Porsches. "The last couple of years we've been battling Porsches that were three seconds faster than we were," said Boris. "We really like the rivalry with the Schnitzer guys; an American team and a German team..." And, Boris, you can throw a two Swedes and a Finn in there with the Americans and the Germans, too.

Meanwhile, Franz Konrad throws down the driving gloves early in GTS, turning a 1:12.390 just eight minutes into the session. Ron Fellows is gardening, on and off the track. "We made a little shock change (before the session) and I wasn't ready for it, and went straight off in turn one, tried it again, got caught in traffic and went off in the esses. By the time I got to it, I had four hard laps on the tires."

The Panoz are out early in prototype, and with only seven between the two classes, traffic will be little problem. Only four minutes into the session, Johnny Herbert puts up the first marker, at 1:05.195. We already knew that an "05" will not hold up today. Klaus Graf sets the first serious pole time, a 1:04.508. The Audis are playing the waiting game, sitting in pit lane, so we were pretty sure we were soon to see that change. We waited, and waited, until finally the Audis go onto the track, at past the halfway mark of the session. Now they will just grab it, we are thinking at that time. The two silver cars run their warm-up lap, and their first and second flying lap without knocking Graf off the pole. At 6:41, with just five minutes left, it is not an Audi that knocks Graf off the pole, but teammate David Brabham, with a record-setting 1:04.181. Now the Audis have just a few tries, and everybody's attention is on the previously invincible R8s. (The cars have never lost a pole, not ever.) They come on, lap after lap, lowering their times, pushing Graf and Herbert down the times, but coming up short again and again to Brabham's record. And so it ends, that Audi stranglehold, at least on qualifying. Panoz' first pole since Las Vegas '99. Good weather, clear track, no problems, just a straight-up shoot-out.

Brabham says, "The secret is to leave your car in the garage for six months, dust it off and it gets better. To be fair, though, we did some front geometry changes toward the end (last year after Petit Le Mans) and were pretty competitive after that. Boris had already weighed in to the effect that "I am more excited about David kicking Audi's ass (than my pole)". Once again, Boris speaks for the common man.

Ron Fellows spoke with his actions. He got to work after his early mishaps, but it wasn't easy work. He put in hot lap after hot lap, and could not wrest the pole from Konrad. Finally, on his tenth lap, with only two minutes to go in the session, his 1:12.324 scraped in ahead of the Saleen by a scant .066 seconds. Keen competition, isn't it? Bring on the race.