Hall Delighted With Stellar Qualifying Run

Stuart Hall was delighted with a stellar lap run that saw the British driver qualify the Gulf Racing Aston Martin third on the grid, their highest in a difficult season so far. In a session that reflected the performance equalising measures implemented on the eve of the race in an attempt to halt Ferrari’s prolonged spell of domination, Hall made it three different marques inside the top three places as Andrea Bertolini’s SMP Ferrari headed the Proton Competition Porsche of Richard Leitz.

Hall was one of the stars of qualifying to put the Aston into the
 mix for the first time this season. (Credit: ELMS Media)

“We’ve had a bit of a tough year so far, the BOP hasn’t been in our favour,” said the 29-year old, who shares with Dan Brown and Roald Goethe. “Now the Ferraris have been pegged back a bit, so we’re there or there abouts, which is better than we have been.

“I was a little bit cautious everywhere, especially at the last corner, but we just managed to get it all together and came over the line with a 29.8. I knew we could do it, it was just a question of making sure I didn’t get any traffic, didn’t make any mistakes and piecing it all together. I left it pretty late but managed to pull it out of the bag! Hopefully that’s hopefully given Dan an opportunity at the front of the field now to get on with his race. He’s been driving very well this weekend, we’ve been very evenly matched. 

“You always want to go quicker, but I don’t think we would have beaten Bertolini; [the Ferrari teams] can’t complain about anything if he’s on pole by four tenths," he added. "Potentially we could have got closer to Leitz, but he’s always going to be hard to beat in a Porsche in his back yard. There’s always ifs and buts, you speak to every driver in the pitlane and they’ll all tell you the same thing. I’m just fortunate that I was able to string a lap together, not screw it up and give us a chance.”

(Credit: Own Photo)

The 29 year-old has pinned his hopes on a top six finish come the race, although he expects the Aston’s prohibitive fuel range will cost them time during the race relative to the swarm of Ferraris.

“I’m struggling to do an hour, we’re going to have to do a lot of fuel saving to try and eke our maximum driving time out, but my maximum driver time is only one hour 15 and I’ll be lucky if I do 58 minutes at this rate,” Hall said.

“We’re just going to try and do our best. The Aston is running well here and its very kind on its tyres, always has been. We’ve just got to all have a good race, make no mistakes, and it will be nice to get a top six at the end of it. We’ve just got to be up for a fight and see what happens after four hours.”