Aston Martin 007 front row Nürburgring 1000km - 22.08.2009

Aston Martin Racing will start the ADAC 1000km of Nürburgring first and second on the grid following excellent qualifying performances from Stefan Mücke (DE), who took pole in 007 and Darren Turner (GB) in the 009 Aston Martin.

The Aston Martin duo secured the front row for the penultimate round of the Le Mans Series in their Gulf liveried LMP1 cars, qualifying over half a second faster than their nearest rivals.

The sister 008 Aston Martin will start Sunday’s 195 lap race from the fifth row.

All three of the blue and orange Aston Martins waited until the 20 minute qualifying session was well underway before leaving the pits to try to avoid traffic. With approximately eight minutes left, Mücke embarked on two timed laps, setting his pole time of 1m41.944sec on the second lap.

German driver Stefan Mücke said: “This is my first pole of the year and it is really special because we are at my home race. I think that I could have gone even quicker on the next lap because the Michelin tyres were improving but unfortunately there was a yellow flag. Nevertheless, I am happy with pole position and the extra point awarded for pole is very useful for our championship status. It is great to have my team-mate Darren on the first row next to me and I’m looking forward to the race.”

Darren Turner went out on track just after Mücke with less than half of the session remaining posting a time of 1m42.060sec in the 009 car: “I’m happy with qualifying. We had been struggling with the balance of the car during practice but my engineer and mechanics did a really great job because in qualifying the car felt much better. It’s a solid result for the team with 007 on pole and us next to them in second. Hopefully we can translate this into a good race result.”

Team Principal George Howard-Chappell is pleased with the team’s performance: “Excellent qualifying pace from Stefan and Darren. I’m really happy to be on the front row, especially at the home race for Stefan and also the CEO of Aston Martin, Dr Ulrich Bez, so thanks to the whole team for a great effort. It’s good to close up one point on the championship with the point we received for pole position. Of course this is only qualifying and it’s the race that matters so let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”

In total, 38 cars will line-up to start the ADAC 1000km of Nürburgring. There will be a 20-minute warm-up session in the morning at 08:30 and the race will commence at 12:30 on Sunday 23 August.

PHOTOGALLERY
Photo: BPA/Miloš Rybář

Stefan Mücke

Jan Charouz

Tomáš Enge

1000 km Nürburgring schedule: 

1000 km Nürburgringu on TV (Sunday August 23):

LIVETIMING to find HERE 
Results to find HERE

Current drives´ standings to find HERE
Current teams´ standings to find HERE
Current manufacturers´ standings to find HERE 

LE MANS SERIES 2009 SCHEDULE

08-09/03		Le Castellet (tests)
03-05/04		1000 km Barcelona
25-26/04		Le Mans (tests)
08-10/05		1000 km Spa-Francorchamps
31/07-02/08		1000 km Algarve
21-23/08		1000 km Nürburgring
11-13/09		1000 km Silverstone