Aston Martin loses out pole as Allan Simonsen's Trophy presented to GruppeM
- Shahmir Khan
- Feb 2, 2019
- 2 min read
The R-Motorsport team lost the pole in Top 10 shootout despite fastest lap of the session.
Jake Dennis, who claimed pole position, is now stripped off from the trophy and pole position as the officials revealed breach of technical regulations by the team. He was due to start 2nd on the grid due to pitlane speeding early in the day.
“Officials found a technical breach related to the mandated rev limit threshold of the Aston Martin Vantage GT3s V12 engine,” read a statement from the Bathurst 12 Hour.
“The breach was unintentional and related to the vehicle’s manufacturer-supplied homologation documents.
“R-Motorsport had initially been award the prestigious Allan Simonsen pole trophy despite the pit lane speeding penalty – which was to be applied to starting grid rather than the shootout results.
“However, the exclusion of the car ensures the car will be recorded to have failed to set a time – handing the Allan Simonsen Pole Award to GruppeM Racing on their first visit to Mount Panorama.
“The penalty applied by the stewards of the meeting was exclusion from the results of the Pirelli Top-10 Shootout.”
The final grid positions are yet to be revealed.
Meanwhile, Jake Dennis went quickest in the Top 10 Shootout with 2:02.494, getting the provisional pole and the trophy by 0.440s. The team is now dropped off the grid after two-place grid penalty and now the violation of regulations.
Second fastest in the shootout was #999 GruppeM Mercedes of Raffaele Marciello, ahead of #77 Craft Bamboo of Maro Engel.
#107 Bentley was up next, as Steven Kane put the car up to fourth place, ahead of David Reynolds in the #777 Bend Motorsports Park Mercedes, making it 3 Mercedes in Top 5.
#22 Team Valvoline with Kelvin van der Linde was in 6th place, after a bit of run-off in last sector ended his hopes for the pole position.
The young Aussie Matt Campbell for Earl Bamber Motorsports, Yelmer Buurman in #19 Black Falcon Mercedes and Christopher Haase in #2 Audi Valvoline completed the top 10.
The 2019 Bathurst 12 Hours will kick off at 11:45 pm Pakistan Time around Mount Panorama.
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