AF Motorsport Secures 992 Endurance Cup Pole

Photo: Racingpixels/Creventic

AF Motorsport claimed pole position for the third running of the Michelin 992 Endurance Cup at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

Dylan Pereira went fastest in the top five shootout at the end of the day, lapping with a 2:19.870 time in the No. 17 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup that he shares with Andre Fernandes, Angelo Fontana and Christian Potolicchio.

The nine-car field jostled for the fastest average lap across three initial qualifying sessions before the quickest five moved into the final one-lap shootout later in the afternoon.

Pereira, the only FIA Gold-ranked driver in this weekend’s field, set the fastest lap of the day. The Portuguese-Luxembourgish driver had a mammoth 1.757 second gap to second place at the end of the shootout.

Mühlner Motorsport’s No. 21 Porsche was second fastest in the shootout with Conrad Tox Leveau at the wheel, ahead of LMR Motorsport in third.

Fourth place was occupied by the No. 920 Chazel Technologie Course entry.

Red Camel-Jordans.nl rounded out the top-five. Driver Rik Breukers would have finished the shootout in second but a track limits violation in the final sector of the lap invalidated the Dutch team’s lap time.

Speed Lover was the first car which failed to advance into the shootout. The Belgian team will start sixth in the continuous 12-hour race.

HRT Performance’s No. 992 Porsche completed Friday’s sessions in seventh, ahead of Theeba Motorsport by Quanloop EST1 Racing.

Theeba Motorsport driver Paul Meijer set the fastest lap in the trio of qualifying sessions with a 2:20.244 lap time.

However, the team lost out on being higher up the field as Reema Juffali was unable to set a valid lap time in the first qualifying session, meaning the squad’s average lap was not fast enough to propel its No. 22 Porsche up the field.

MM Racing will complete the grid on Saturday as it did not set a time in qualifying.

The Michelin 992 Endurance Cup is set to kick off at 9:45 a.m. local time (3:45 a.m. EST) on Saturday with live coverage on Creventic Motorsports TV YouTube channel featuring Radio Show Limited commentary.

RESULTS: Shootout/Qualifying Combined

Finlay Ringer

Finlay Ringer is a freelance motorsport journalist covering the 24H Series for Sportscar365. He is also a journalism student at City St George's, University of London, and has contributed to publications such as The Race and Autocar.