ROWE Puts Porsche on Pole at Barcelona

Photo: SRO

ROWE Racing will start this afternoon’s Blancpain GT Series finale from pole position after Romain Dumas, Sven Mueller and Mathieu Jaminet set the pace in qualifying at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The trio logged a combined average lap time of 1:45.032 driving their No. 98 Porsche 911 GT3 R after previously leading the way in Pre-Qualifying on Saturday afternoon.

The Porsche will line up alongside Black Falcon’s championship-contending Mercedes-AMG GT3 driven by Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Yelmer Buurman, whose combined time was good enough for second.

Engel and Stolz’s principal rivals in the overall Blancpain GT standings are Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli, who will start from third in the No. 563 Orange 1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 along with new driver Albert Costa.

Endurance Cup points leaders Mikhail Aleshin, Miguel Molina and Davide Rigon will start from 13th in the SMP Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 but a healthy lead of 22 points already puts them in a strong position for the title.

Belgian Audi Club Team WRT’s No. 2 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo qualified fourth after going quickest in Free Practice on Saturday morning, while FFF’s No. 519 car will start from fifth.

An improved showing from the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 allowed R-Motorsport to qualify its No. 76 car sixth after running further down the earlier in the weekend.

AKKA ASP’s Felipe Fraga, Nico Bastian and Timur Boguslavskiy took the Silver Cup pole from tenth overall, while their teammates Jim Pla, Mauro Ricci and Jean-Luc Beaubelique will start from Pro-Am pole.

Am Cup honors went to the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini of Miguel Ramos, Leo Machitski and Adrian Amstutz.

Qualifying was fairly uneventful and clean, except for one red flag period in Qualifying 1 that was called to retrieve the Tempesta Racing Ferrari and Ram Racing Mercedes which spun off simultaneously in separate incidents.

The three-hour race gets underway at 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EDT) and can be streamed live on the series’ website and GT World YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Qualifying

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.