GTE-Am pole-sitter Ben Keating of the #3 Corvette C8.R credited the team’s immediate choice for slick tyres at the beginning of qualifying for the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Fuji, on a damp, drying track surface.
The track was declared wet beforehand due to damp patches which were brought by an earlier spell of rain, and thus half the GTE field initially opted for wet tyres as the others went for slicks.
Corvette Racing, who secured the GTE-Am Teams’ Championship at the 6 Hours of Monza, will start tomorrow’s World Endurance Championship six-hour race on GTE-Am pole position.
Keating, who qualified the car, spoke about the track evolution, and specifically about dry patches emerging on the second half of the Fuji Speedway circuit.
“It was exciting before we left [the pits],” the Texan said.
“I thought it would be the best thing to go out on a drying wet (tyre) because to me, the front-straight looked wet.
“But we watched every car around me put on slicks, and so the engineers made the decision to go with slicks from the get-go.
“And when I got around, the track was a lot drier on the on the back-half than it was on the front-straight, so I came on the radio and congratulated them on making the right call.
“And it was just a matter of bringing them up to temperature slowly and not overdriving in the damp conditions.
“But you only have a 15-minute window, you have to get them up to temperature, you try to have to take advantage of the peak of the tyre to get those extra few tenths.
“I was not expecting [my lap time]… I think my qualifying lap was 2.3 seconds quicker than anything I’ve done here so far, because I’ve only been in tricky conditions so far this weekend.
“And the lap time that I was able to do was much better than I was expecting and delighted to get the pole. So unexpected, but happy to be there.”
During the closing stages of GTE-Am qualifying, there was a tense battle for pole between Keating and Sarah Bovy, of the #85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR.
They swapped the front spot until eventually Keating set a 1:33.338, narrowly surpassing Bovy’s provisional fastest lap time of 1:33.373.
The Iron Dames are targeting their first WEC victory, since not being able to convert their 1000 Miles of Sebring and 6 Hours of Monza pole positions into race wins.
Furthermore, at the Portimao and Spa-Francorchamps events, they qualified in second place, thus marking their third instance this year starting second.
The 6 Hours of Fuji will take place tomorrow on Sunday 10 September, from 3 am UK time.
