Here is the thing about racing: sometimes the weather makes the decision for you, and that is exactly how Proton Competition claimed pole position for the upcoming 6 Hours of Fuji. Heavy standing water and worsening visibility completely ruined the afternoon, forcing officials to cancel the qualifying sessions outright following an early accident for François Hériau in the #21 Ferrari 296 Evo run by VISTA AF Corse.
With no official shootout possible, the grid was set using the fastest individual laps recorded across the three practice sessions. That quirk of the rulebook put the #77 Ford Mustang right at the front, courtesy of a benchmark time laid down by Ben Tuck during Friday's second practice. It is a stunning reward for a machine that has looked properly hooked up all weekend long.
"The car has felt amazing in both wet and dry conditions all weekend, and that's shown with our pace in practice," said Tuck, sharing the cockpit with team-mates Sebastian Priaulx and Eric Powell after the trio secured a season-best fifth-place finish last time out on Ford's home soil of COTA. "We're extremely happy to get pole position, even if we were unable to fight in a true qualifying session. The fact the result goes back to our practice pace shows we've done enough to deserve pole, and now I can't wait to get going in the race tomorrow!"
Lining up right alongside the American beast at the front of the grid will be the #79 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG. Lin Hodenius got within less than five hundredths-of-a-second of Tuck's pace, a razor-thin margin that proves just how tight this field is. Behind them, the #78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus and the #58 Garage 59 McLaren round out the top four positions, followed closely by the second Mercedes and the second McLaren entries.
Further back, the championship protagonists have some work to do. The top two teams in the title standings—the #33 TF Sport Corvette and the #21 VISTA Ferrari—find themselves sharing the fifth row of the grid. Meanwhile, the title-defending Manthey Porsches face an even steeper climb, forced to fight their way through the traffic from the very back of the grid when the lights go out.
The 6 Hours of Fuji is scheduled to get underway at 11:00 local time (GMT+9) tomorrow, Sunday, 27 September.
