Stormy Sepang Serves Up Saleen 1-2-3 in Qualifying

Antonio Reyna-Sanchez took a shock pole position in a wet qualifying session for the GT Super Series Round of Malaysia at the Sepang International Circuit.

In the first pole position for an Independent since the Onyx Saleen of Wakana Morioka at the 2016 Super GP, Antonio Reyna-Sanchez and the two other Saleen S7-Rs made the most of the treacherous weather conditions and rose to the occasion to put in the three fastest times of the session. After John Magnus and then Li Qi put in the provisionally quickest times on their first laps, Reyna-Sanchez and series debutante Ai Tsukimura put up the first and second quickest times respectively; they would hold for the rest of the session with Qi failing to improve on a second attempt on fresh wet tires.

James Douglas in the other Tom Douglas Saleen would take advantage of Qi failing to improve, putting in the third quickest time of the session on his final lap as the chequered flag was waving to close the session. The Falken-shod Aston would be bumped to fourth in their best qualifying performance of the season, and the Carson Corvette being bumped down to fifth. A further four tenths behind the Chinese driver was overall winner in Belgium Matteo Rossi, failing to capitalize on trailing close behind the pole sitter late in the session to improve his own time.

The first of the Drivers Championship contenders starts ninth with Evgeny Restov being 1.7 seconds behind the time set by Reyna-Sanchez in his Pirelli-shod Ferrari 550. Five positions and sixth tenths behind the Russian on the timesheets is championship leader Chris Winter in his Solvalou Lamborghini,  struggling with the conditions and lapped traffic to put in a representative time. Struggling with their Pirelli tires was the third championship protagonist in Fabian Rei, who qualified twenty-first for the race on Sunday more than three seconds off the ultimate pace in the rain. Rei’s teammate, Paul Travesen, would be another half a second off the pace and will start twenty-fourth. Independent’s Trophy leader Valeri Kozar sees his car start on the grid twentieth with Finn Markus Jacobson returning to Starting Driver duties for Malaysia and China.

Qualifying Results – Round of Malaysia