Porsche junior Mathieu Jaminet (Martinet by Almeras) posted pole position for the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup race on Sunday. On the storied 5.891-kilometre racetrack at Silverstone (GB), the 21-year-old Frenchman clocked the fastest lap time in 2:05.299 minutes. Porsche junior Matteo Cairoli (I/Fach Auto Tech) turned the second fastest lap, relegating Porsche junior Sven Müller (D/Lechner MSG Racing Team) to the third grid spot.
“Finally, my first pole position! Last week in Spielberg we were just three-thousandths of a second off pole, and now we’ve done it. You don’t get a better starting position than this. Now I want to win the race,” said a confident Jaminet, who takes up the fourth of ten races as the series leader.
Under cloudy skies and with temperatures of 18 degrees Celsius, the 30-strong field tackled the Silverstone qualifying of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup. After rain in the morning, the track slowly dried during the qualifying and the session turned into a battle of tactics. Müller drove his fastest time in the first ten minutes of the 30-minute session. At halftime, almost all the pilots came in to the pits to watch and wait. When Cairoli went out six minutes before the end of the qualifying he enjoyed a free run with no traffic, but only managed to post the top time of 2:05.313 minutes in the last two minutes. “Second place is good and I’m heading into the race feeling positive. The starting problems that I experienced at Spielberg should be fixed. We’ve changed the clutch setting so hopefully I’ll now manage a decent start,” said Cairoli.
With very little time and facing a yellow flag in the last lap, Müller was unable to find an answer on his second set of tyres. “Everything ran perfectly with my first set of tyres, but I couldn’t do anything with my second set because of the caution phase. I’m quite sure that I could have done better,” said Müller. Lining up alongside Müller’s red and white 460 hp Porsche 911 GT3 Cup on the second grid row for Sunday’s race is Jeffrey Schmidt (CH/Lechner Racing Middle East).
The British guest drivers made the most of their home advantage and conquered excellent starting positions: Joshua Webster (Rookie Team Deutsche Post by Project 1) from Mickfield drove the fifth quickest time, beating his teammate Nicholas Yelloly from Solihull on sixth by just two-thousandths of a second. The current leader of the Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain, Dan Cammish (Redline Racing) from Leeds, occupied the seventh grid spot ahead of Tom Sharp (Team Parker Racing) from Surrey. Eleven pilots from Great Britain tackle the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup this weekend.
Round four of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup takes off on Sunday at 11.35 hrs (CEST). Sky Deutschland and Eurosport 2 broadcast the race live.
Qualifying Silverstone 1. Mathieu Jaminet (F/Martinet by Almeras), 2:05.299 minutes2. Matteo Cairoli (I/Fach Auto Tech), 2:05.313 minutes3. Sven Müller (D/Lechner MSG Racing Team), 2:05.448 minutes4. Jeffrey Schmidt (CH/Lechner Racing Middle East), 2:05.548 minutes5. Joshua Webster (GB/Rookie Team Deutsche Post by Project 1), 2:05.634 minutes6. Nicholas Yelloly (GB/Rookie Team Deutsche Post by Project 1), 2:05.636 minutes7. Dan Cammish (GB/Redline Racing), 2:05.693 minutes8. Tom Sharp (GB/Team Parker Racing), 2:05.933 minutes
