REBELLION Racing secures privateer P1 team pole in Sao Paulo

6 HOURS OF SAO PAULO QUALIFYING SESSION : POLE POSITION OF THE FIA WEC LMP1 PRIVATEER ENTRANTS FOR REBELLION RACING !

#12 Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 Coupé Toyota: Nicolas Prost, Neel Jani

Photo by: xpb.cc

Neel JANI secured the « pole position » of the FIA WEC LMP1 Team Trophy for tomorrow's 6 hours of Sao Paulo, placing the #12 Lola-Toyota on the second row (4th position) of the grid with a laptime of 1'23''962.

Andrea BELICCHI in the Lola-Toyota #13 secured 6th position on the grid with 1'24''179 as his best laptime.

The two Lola-Toyotas and the two HPDs were covered by less than four tenths, which promises a fantastic battle in tomorrow's race.

The start of the race will be at 12h00, Saturday 15th September.

Neel Jani – Lola-Toyota #12 :
« My first lap was my best. That reminded me of my good old days in single seaters ! Yesterday, we did not think that we could secure this result. As the track is narrow, it's important to be ahead. So, to be in front of our competitors is a very good thing for the race ! I think I lost two tenths because my brakes were cold. It was difficult to find a clear window free of traffic. We are happy to take the « privateer » pole this time after being twice behind the HPDs. Perhaps the warmer condition has helped us. But it is certainly the work of all the team that has made it !»

Nicolas Prost – Lola-Toyota #12 :
« Once again, it has been a fantastic job by all the team. To be honest, yesterday I didn't see how we could beat the HPDs today. Only strong teams are able to understand and improve the car like we did. Neel did a fantastic quali. We are in a good position for the race. Now we know what we have to do !»

Andrea Belicchi – Lola-Toyota #13 :
« The performance of the four privateer team cars here are very close. That means that the battle will be hard in the race ! We'll not be allowed to make any mistake. But I'm confident with my car. I have a good feeling with it. After good work, we have now the car to race here !»

Harold Primat – Lola-Toyota # 13 :
« We have rediscovered our car ! Yesterday, during the first session, the car was really not like we expected it. We had a good second session of free practice, Andrea secured a good step of improvements on the car and I did good laptimes that confimed to us that we were aiming the right way. The free session this morning wasn't quite as good, so we have worked on two or three things on the car just before the qualification session without any guaranty of their effectiveness. The laptime that Andrea did in quali confirmed that the changes were good ! »

Bart Hayden REBELLION Racing Team manager :
«It's very close between our cars and the HPDs and I think we are all a little bit surprised to secure the Privateers pole today. It'll be a close race tomorrow, but we're ready and very much looking forward to it. Congratulations to Neel for landing the pole and a pat on the back to the Team for working together to get our cars up into that position.»

Source: REBELLION Racing