Sarah Bovy claimed LMGT3 pole position for the Iron Dames during qualifying for the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Sao Paulo.
Excitement anticipated the first WEC qualifying session at Interlagos since 2014 as both current Hypercar and LMGT3 machinery drastically differ to the LMP1 and LMGTE cars competing then.
After the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F was withdrawn due to an accident suffered in the first free practice session, this meant 17 LMGT3 cars took to the track in the Q1 session before the top-10 fought for the outright pole position.
Even before Hyperpole, the gaps were close between the cars as drivers were fuelled by the objective to simply reach the top-10 threshold.
United Autosports (McLaren), AF Corse (Ferrari) and joint-points leaders Manthey (Porsche) looked strong with all of their cars during the early stages of Q1 as just one second covered the top-14 cars.
The Iron Dames were fighting for their spot in the threshold with Sarah Bovy at the wheel of their #85 Lamborghini Huracan LMGT3 EVO2, before she asserted front-end pace in the final minutes to safely reach the threshold.
A red flag was declared after just two minutes into Hyperpole when Thomas Flohr stopped at Turn 5 having endured a spin heading into the corner, and scraped the left-side wall slightly with the front of his #54 AF Corse Ferrari 296.
This automatically resided the #54 into 10th position having caused the session stoppage therefore not being allowed to rejoin.
Once again, both United Autosports McLaren 720S entries looked strong as they set near-matched qualifying pace, before Bovy bettered them as a clear contender for pole position.
Soon enough, she secured her second pole of this season with a commanding 1:34.413 lap time.
At 0.391 seconds behind in P2 was the #92 Manthey PureRxing Porsche 911 of Alex Malykhin (1:34.804), as Josh Caygill put the #95 McLaren 720S into third place (1:34.860).
Fourth was taken by the other United Autosports McLaren with James Cottingham driving the #59 machine.
The reigning British GT vice-champion set a fastest time of 1:34.911 ahead of fifth-placed Yasser Shahin in the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 and his 1:35.471 lap time.
Meanwhile the reigning British GT champion, Darren Leung, took sixth for Team WRT’s #31 BMW M4 owing to a fastest time of 1:35.562.
Seventh position was claimed by Francois Heriau in the #55 AF Corse Ferrari 296 (1:35.656), ahead of eighth-placed Tom van Rompuy’s #81 TF Sport Corvette Z06 which set a 1:35.931.
Ian James, team principal at Heart of Racing, finished in ninth for the #27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR with a 1:36.211 as Flohr resided in 10th.
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