Alex Lynn told reporters that fourth and fifth for Cadillac was the maximum the team had in qualifying for the FIA World Endurance Championship season opener at Qatar.
“I think it’s a really solid start for the team in our first outing,” he said.
“We did really well from the first day of the Prologue and now we’re at the front, which is where we want to be. I think it’s going to be a super close race.
“I think that was the maximum we had. I think we’re both at the right end of the grid, which is what we’ve worked for. Our race pace is strong so I think we can do well.”
Lynn qualified his #12 Cadillac V-Series.R fourth, 0.364 off the pace of polesitter Antonio Giovinazzi, in the #51 Ferrari 499P. His teammate in the sister #38 car, Sebastien Bourdais, was directly behind him, three tenths away from Lynn.
New dawn for Cadillac in WEC
After spending two years with Chip Ganassi Racing, Cadillac has a new factory partner team this year, in the form of JOTA. The British team formerly raced Porsche customer cars in 2023 and 2024, taking their inaugural overall WEC win at Spa last year, but have embarked on a new era for the team as its first factory partnership with a manufacturer.
The team has been quick all week, since the Prologue, and is now translating that into results. The race pace looks good too, just behind Ferrari in the long run pace analysis, with the new partnership certainly off to a good start.
Bourdais in agreement with Lynn
“Overall, a strong result for the team for our first qualifying together,” said Bourdais.
“It’s a long day ahead of us tomorrow, so hopefully we can have a strong, clean day and bring home the result that comes our way.
“At the end of the day, I’m sure there will be a bit of a different pecking order. I think the car has been sensibly quick on long runs, so hopefully we can set toward the front and then hope that others make mistakes and we don’t. I think Alex probably got as much as there is in the car.”
The two American-flagged cars are in the mix with their rivals, with Ferrari in pole and in third, sandwiching the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor, who held pole until the very last second, when Giovinazzi stole it away. The sister #50 Ferrari will start third, which Antonio Fuoco qualified, and the other BMW, the #20 of Robin Frijns, qualified sixth.
The race will start Friday 28th February at 14:00 local time or 11:00 UTC. See the full qualifying results here.
