Donington Park - 26/08/2001   Qualifying Report   Donington Park revelled in hot and steamy conditions today, right up until two minutes before the SR2 qualifying session that is, when a cloudburst soaked the track. Difficult conditions then for the 11 entrants in the SR2 category, and after two bone dry practice sessions 11 crews were faced with an immediate challenge, Donington Park in the wet. Cometh the hour cometh the man. In his 500th competitive race (well, 501st), Ian Flux (who must surely have driven at least a few before at Donington in the wet), hit the front in the #75 Rapier 6 and stayed there through the worst of the weather, despite the efforts of the championship leading #72 Team Sweden Lola and the hard charging local boys Rowan Racing in their #61 Pilbeam (below, earlier in the day). As the track dried however, the inevitable happened. First Thed Bjork took provisional pole in the #72 Lola before being relegated almost at the last moment by the #51 factory Lucchini of Denny Zardo. Not quite the end of the story however as the sister #52 factory Lucchini finished the session on top of the timing charts. Sebastien Ugeux in the #52 Lucchini seemed to allow his enthusiasm to run away with himself, and the pole sitting car was seen to pass the chequered flag at least twice before finally pitting to bring SR2 qualifying to an end. The weather provided a similar challenge for the nine SR1 runners, a greasy track at the start of the session again called for a skilful hand. Step forward Jan Lammers (Hillebrand earlier in the day, above) in the #8 Racing for Holland Dome S101 with an early 1:31. This would prove good enough for pole position as the conditions worsened dramatically midway through the session with only John Nielsen in the similar #5 Den Bla Avis Dome able to get within half a second of the flying Dutchman. Third on the grid went to the impressive Sam Hancock, running both speedily and steadily in the #10 Kremer Lola - and annoyed at being 'weight-checked' at the wrong moments. Any chance of the remaining runners challenging for the leading grid positions was, however, washed away by a renewed downpour with around 12 minutes to go of the 30 minute qualifying session. In the last ten minutes only Alex Caffi in the R&M Riley and Scott ventured out on track to entertain a sparse qualifying day crowd, sadly without successfully troubling the timing charts. So the SR1 will be a Dome 1-2 with SR2 a similar lock-out for the factory Lucchini equipe. Better weather is forecast for the race tomorrow and the chasing pack will surely be keen to peg back the front row sprinters. Graham Goodwin Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport