WEC: Alpine nips Toyotas for pole at Portimao

Alpine Elf Matmut claimed its first-ever overall pole position for round two of the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship, the 8 Hours of Portimão.

Matthieu Vaxiviere claimed the top spot by less than a tenth of a second from the best of the Toyotas in the hands of Brendon Hartley.

Sunday’s race is a landmark event for Toyota which celebrates its 100th World Championship sportscar start since its Group C debut in the 1983 Fuji 1000km. Following a very competitive qualifying both cars are firmly in contention for another victory in Portugal on Sunday, having already won the season-opening 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps last month.

Spa winners Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley, in the #8 GR010 HYBRID, left it late to take second place, just 0.094secs adrift of the #36 Alpine which set a pole position time of 1mins 30.364secs.

World Champions Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López will start the race from third place in their #7 GR010 HYBRID after a best lap 0.176secs from pole. WEC Hypercar debutants Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus will start from 11th.

The new Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 LMH ended up only 11th in the times behind seven LMP2 cars despite an improvement to 1m32.167s from Richard Westbrook on his second run.

LMGTE Pro

Porsche takes the top spot in the LMGTE Pro class as they continue a close fight with historic rivals Ferrari, as Kevin Estre takes second consecutive pole.

Kevin Estre sets the fastest lap to claim second consecutive pole position with a 1m37.986 in No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR-19. Estre set two lap times that would have been good enough for pole as No.92 team continues 100% points success in 2021 so far

James Calado will start second on the grid with 1m38.359s lap in No.51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

The No.91 Porsche driven by Gimmi Bruni starts third but No.52 Ferrari had difficult session and will start at rear of grid

Qualifying Results