Aston Martin dominated the qualifying race at the Silverstone round of the FIA GT1 World Championship on Saturday evening, as the French Hexis team claimed a 1-2 sweep in the one-hour race with its pair of Aston Martin DBR9s. Thomas Accary and Frederic Makowiecki led home teammates Clivio Piccione and Jonathan Hirschi to claimed victory by three and a half seconds, which gives them pole position for tomorrow's main event and eight championship points.
"This was a good result after our problems at Abu Dhabi [the series opener last month]," said Makowiecki. "The Aston was incredible today, really consistent."
The early laps of the race were dominated by the pole-winning Young Driver AMR Aston in the hands of Tomas Enge. The Czech built a lead that grew to as much as four and a half seconds ahead of Accary until the mandatory pit stops in the middle of the race.
Darren Turner would have taken over the lead in the German-run Young Driver car had he not be called in for a drivethrough, which was award because Enge had cut the white line on the pitlane entry ahead of his stop. Turner then repeated the infringement when he pitted, resulting in a further stop-go penalty.
Turner resumed down in seventh place, but was able to fight his way past the Sumo Power Nissan of Warren Hughes, Mike Hezemans in the best of the Phoenix/Carsport Chevrolet Corvettes and then Jos Menten's Reiter Lamborghini. That left him fourth at the finish behind the Vitaphone Maserati driven by Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini.
Hughes and teammate Jamie Campbell-Walter ended up fifth, followed by Menten and impressive FIA GT newcomer Frank Kechele in the Reiter Lambo.