Roda Extends Pole Streak for Proton in Dubai

Photo: Asian Le Mans Series

Giorgio Roda secured another pair of Asian Le Mans Series pole positions for this weekend’s pair of races at the Dubai Autodrome, continuing his perfect qualifying record aboard the No. 22 Proton Competition Oreca 07 Gibson.

Having taken both poles during the opening weekend of the series at Sepang last December, Roda was again the driver to beat in the 15-minute qualifying session for prototypes, topping the timesheets with a best effort of 1:47.569.

His second-fastest time of 1:48.049 ensures that the No. 22 car he shares with Tom Dillmann and Vlad Lomko will lead the field to green for both of the four-hour races that make up this weekend’s 4 Hours of Dubai.

Roda’s nearest rival was the No. 50 AF Corse Oreca of Jeremy Clarke, who recovered from an early spin at Turn 2 to take second on the grid for both races, his best lap falling 0.585 seconds shy of the benchmark time.

Alexander Malykhin was third aboard the No. 91 Pure Rxcing car on both best and second-best times, ahead of the No. 11 Proton car in which Alexander Mattschull secured fourth on the grid for both races.

Francois Perrodo was fifth aboard the second of the AF cars, the No. 83 Oreca, followed by Georgios Kolovos in the No. 3 DKR Engineering car.

Class Poles for High Class, Kessel Racing

In LMP3, pole for both races went to the No. 49 High Class Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Thomas Kiefer, who went more than a second clear of the field.

Kiefer’s best time of 1:54.906 compared to a 1:55.930 for nearest rival Jens Reno Moeller in the No. 26 Bretton Racing Ligier, who was pipped to the other spot on the front row for Sunday’s second race by Graff Racing’s Alexander Bukhantsov.

Bukhantsov was third on best times ahead of Tim Creswick in the better of the two Inter Europol Competition entries.

In GT, Kessel Racing took pole for both races courtesy of Dustin Blattner’s best two laps aboard the No. 74 Ferrari 296 GT3.

The American driver set a best time of 1:58.891 to top a 15-minute session for GT cars that was cut short by a crash for the No. 82 AF Corse Ferrari of Charles Henri Samani.

Blattner’s second-best time of 1:58.890 guaranteed the No. 74 car a clean sweep of poles, with Rinat Salikhov his nearest rival in the No. 81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo on a best time of 1:59.040.

Third-fastest was the No. 28 Conquest Racing Ferrari of Massimiliano Wiser ahead of Steve Jans in the No. 9 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG and the No. 87 Origine Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R of Bo Yuan.

On second-fastest times, GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS champion Yuan was Blattner’s nearest rival, giving the No. 87 car second on the grid for Sunday’s second race, ahead of Sergey Stolyarov in the No. 16 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG.

Stolyarov’s best time was only good enough for seventh for Saturday’s race, one place behind Reema Juffali in the Blackthorn Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, who took fourth on the grid for Sunday ahead of Jans and Salikhov.

The opening leg of the 4H Dubai begins at 2:10 p.m. local time (5:10 a.m. ET).