Drudi Captures Hockenheim Sunday Pole in Audi 1-2

Mattia Drudi produced a late flyer to score pole position for the second Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup race at Hockenheim in an Audi one-two.

The Italian narrowly led the 20-minute qualifying session with a late 1:37.195 lap time in Attempto Racing’s Tresor Orange 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II that he shares with Ricardo Feller.

Drudi and Feller won Saturday’s race from second on the grid and their strong weekend form continued into Sunday as Drudi chalked up his first career Sprint Cup overall pole.

Patric Niederhauser also made an improvement in the final minute to put the No. 25 Sainteloc Junior Team Audi second on the grid, just 0.087 seconds short of Drudi.

The two Audi Sport factory drivers knocked Raffaele Marciello off the top spot and denied the Sprint Cup points leader his third pole of the campaign.

Marciello settled for third, while Thierry Vermeulen put the No. 69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 on the second row of the grid with a 1:37.430 effort.

Vermeulen and Albert Costa lost their third-place finish in Race 1 after the former driver was given a one-second penalty for causing a collision when passing the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 at the final corner.

Christian Engelhart completed the top five in qualifying for Porsche squad Dinamic GT, ahead of Comtoyou Racing Audi driver Christopher Haase.

A pair of WRT BMWs were next in the order, with Maxime Martin beating Dries Vanthoor in the intra-team battle.

Ninth-placed Alberto di Folco claimed the Gold Cup class pole behind the wheel of the No. 9 Boutsen VDS Audi, while the VSR Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 that started on the overall pole in Race 1 ranked 10th in the hands of Franck Perera.

Maximilian Paul gave his Paul Motorsport team a Silver Cup pole at its first GTWC Europe Sprint Cup event and Reema Juffali narrowly beat Ralf Bohn by 0.041 seconds to take the top spot in Bronze Cup.

The second race of the Hockenheim event starts at 2:35 p.m. local time (8:35 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Qualifying 2