Marciello Leads Mercedes 1-2 in Sunday Qualifying

Raffaele Marciello took pole position to lead an Akkodis APS Team front row lockout for the second Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup at Magny-Cours, while Saturday winner Dries Vanthoor caused a red flag by spinning into the barrier.

Marciello captured pole position with a series of fast flying laps towards the end of the session, ultimately settling on a 1:35.444 to go quickest in the No. 89 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which he shares with Timur Boguslavskiy.

The Swiss ace’s fastest time best effort was 0.258 seconds clear of teammate Maximilian Goetz, who secured a Mercedes one-two by going second quickest.

Patric Niederhauser took third in the No. 25 Sainteloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo, 0.097 seconds down on Goetz as the best Audi driver.

Dean Macdonald took a surprising fourth place behind the wheel of the No. 188 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3, also taking Pro-Am pole position in the process.

The McLaren driver was a consistent presence in the top five in the second half of the session and ultimately secured a second row spot with a best effort of 1:36.215.

He was aided by a messy session for Saturday race winner Dries Vanthoor, who caused a red flag mere minutes into the session.

Vanthoor lost control of his No. 32 Team WRT Audi at the Nurburgring chicane and spun into the barriers.

He would later rejoin the session with some light rear-end damage, but had his fastest lap deleted as punishment for causing the red flag.

This left the reigning Sprint Cup champion on the edges of the top ten.

His Team WRT stablemate Christopher Mies was fifth aboard the No. 33 Audi, with JP Motorsport’s Christian Klien putting two McLarens into the top ten with sixth place.

Ulysse de Pauw secured Silver-class pole by putting the No. 53 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo seventh on the grid, with Vanthoor lining up eighth.

Klaus Bachler’s No. 54 Dinamic Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R ended up ninth after initially running as high as second before a flurry of late improvements dropped him down the order.

Frederic Vervisch befell a similar fate, with WRT’s No. 46 Audi completing the top ten.

The second Sprint Cup race of the weekend kicks off at 3 p.m. local time.

RESULTS: Qualifying 2