Spa-Francorchamps: New Zealand’s Brendon Hartley confident despite qualifying issues

The No.2 Porsche 919 Hybrid may have had to settle for fifth on the grid for Saturday’s second round of the FIA World Endurance Championships at the iconic Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, but that doesn’t have New Zealander Brendon Hartley down.

“We were very unlucky,” said the 27-year-old Hartley, one-third of the 2015 FIA WEC-winning trio that also included teammate Timo Bernhard (GER) and the now-retired Mark Webber (AUS).

“I had a good first lap and was looking at P1 but lost the time due to a red flag. When the session resumed, I had traffic then encountered a small systems problem, which prevented me from challenging for pole.

“Our car was definitely quick enough. We’re confident we have a good car for tomorrow having focussed on race set-up in the three practice sessions.”

Spa-Francorchamps features one of motorsports’ oldest and most technical circuits in the world. Designed in 1920, the course hosted its first race two years later and features a long 7-kilometre track which drivers will race at excessive speeds of more than 300 km/h.

While the no.2 car rolls to the start in fifth, the no.1 Porsche piloted by Neel Jani (SUI) and André Lotterer (GER) took the pole with an average lap time of 1 minute 54.097 seconds, thanks in part to Jani recording the fastest lap of the day (1m53.756). The blistering pace gives Porsche its first pole since Shanghai last November.

“Congratulations to our sister car for pole-position — it’s a great result for Porsche,” said Hartley’s 36-year-old teammate Bernhard. “For car 2 there were a number of issues in qualifying which we must now investigate. In the practice sessions over the past two days we have been good in the long runs so everything is still possible in the race.”

However, it was opening round winner Toyota Gazoo Racing, who will be using three cars at Spa, who took slots two through four.

According to Eurosport motorsports commentator Mark Cole, Toyota is keen to avenge last year’s last-minute loss due to mechanical failure at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and will be pulling out all the stops at Spa-Francorchamps and their return to Le Mans next month (June 17-18).

“Toyota is looking very, very strong this year and putting everything into winning Le Mans,” Cole told Eurosport on Thursday. “Porsche again wants to win Le Mans and capture their 19th win.

“This could be Toyota’s year,” he continued. “They lead the race last year but the car broke with about 10 minutes of the race left, and this year I think Toyota is going to go all out to make sure they don’t have that problem again.

However Porsche team principal Andreas Seidl is happy with his two car’s positioning in the lead-up race to Le Mans.

“Congratulations to our crew number 1 for a well-deserved pole position,” he said. “Neel and André did excellent laps. It feels nice to be back on pole again since the Shanghai race last November.

“Timo and Brendon had the same speed, but we couldn’t manage to bring it all together,” Seidl continued. “However, with P1 and P5 on the grid we are well positioned for the race and also well prepared after focussing on long-runs in the practice sessions.

“We will definitely see a tight and exciting race tomorrow. Both manufacturers in LMP1 operate on an impressive lap time level.”