EWC Bol d’Or (Q2): BMW on pole with Reiterberger and van der Mark!

The second qualifying session for the season finale of the Endurance World Championship (EWC) at Le Castellet was set to decide which team would start from pole position in the Bol d’Or 24-hour race on Saturday afternoon. BMW were the favourites and lived up to that role.

BMW had already dominated the first qualifying session on Thursday. In all three groups relevant to the race drivers, the fastest time was set by an M1000RR: Naomichi Uramoto came out on top for AutoRace Ube, Marcel Schrötter was the fastest in the second group on the ERC-BMW, and Michael van der Mark put the BMW works team at the top of the timesheets in the third session. For World Championship leaders YART, however, Q1 did not go to plan. Karel Hanika crashed and failed to set a lap time, whilst Marvin Fritz and Leandro Mercado were unable to challenge for the fastest time in their respective groups.

Blue Group: Reiterberger clocks a 1:50 lap time!

Naomichi Uramoto had set the benchmark in Q1 with a time of 1:51.050 mins. In Q2 on Friday morning, this mark was beaten: Markus Reiterberger lapped the Circuit Paul Ricard in 1:50.930 minutes and secured the fastest time in the Blue Group with the works BMW.

For Uramoto, however, the session did not go to plan. The Japanese rider crashed in Turn 5, but was still able to finish Q2 in third place. The AutoRace-Ube rider was unable to match his best time from Q1. There were further crashes involving the Maco Racing Team at Turn 2 and Legacy Competition at Turn 12.

Gregg Black provided a surprise. The SERT rider clocked a time of 1:51.144 mins on his Suzuki, putting him in second place behind Reiterberger. YART rider Karel Hanika, who had already crashed during testing and in Q1, could not manage better than the eighth-fastest time. The Czech rider was 1.191 seconds off Reiterberger’s best time.

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Yellow Group: Factory BMW on top, Schrötter in the top three

In the second group, too, the BMW with start number 37 was right at the top. Steven Odendaal improved significantly compared to Q1 and set the fastest time of 1:51.192 mins. This meant the South African was just under two tenths of a second faster than Corentin Perolari on the F.C.C. TSR Honda.

BMW-Werkspilot Steven Odendaal

Foto: BMW

Marcel Schrötter was well off the pace for a long time in his ERC BMW, but struck at the very last second. The German moved up to third place with his final lap. His time was just 0.046 seconds slower than his best time from Q1, with which he had led the yellow group on Thursday.

Etienne Masson took fourth place on the SERT Suzuki. Behind him came the YART Yamaha: Marvin Fritz, in fifth, was 0.575 sec off Odendaal’s fastest time.

Red Group: Van der Mark secures BMW pole

The Red Group decided which team would start Saturday’s EWC season finale from pole position. Michael van der Mark improved significantly on his Q1 performance and set the fastest time of the entire qualifying session with a lap of 1:50.744 minutes. The Dutchman thus secured pole position for the BMW works team.

Michael van der Mark

Foto: BMW

As well as securing the best starting position, BMW were delighted to pick up five crucial bonus points for the World Championship. Ahead of the 24-hour race, the works team thus reduced the gap to championship leaders YART.

The closest challenger in the red group was YART rider Leandro Mercado, who was, however, already 1.260 seconds off van der Mark’s fabulous time. Kaito Toba once again put in a strong performance. The Japanese rider took the Etoile team’s stock BMW to third place. Jan-Ole Jähnig finished Q2 in sixth place in the ERC Endurance BMW.

Green group: Lucas Mahias ahead of Jeremy Guarnoni

In the fourth and final group, it was the turn of the reserve drivers. Their times had no bearing on the qualifying result. Marc-VDS driver Lucas Mahias set the fastest time of 1:52.907 mins. Jeremy Guarnoni, in the works BMW, followed closely behind in second place.

The combined times from Q1/Q2:

To follow shortly.