Gachet Scores Race 2 Pole in Silver Cup Audi

Simon Gachet put Sainteloc Racing’s Silver Cup-class Audi on pole for the second GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup race at Magny-Cours.

The Frenchman, who is teamed up with Steven Palette, set the French team’s No. 26 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo on top of the leaderboard in qualifying with a time of 1:35.468.

This gave Gachet a narrow 0.015-second advantage over AKKA-ASP’s Raffaele Marciello, whose Pro-class Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo will also start on the front row of the grid.

Even closer behind Marciello was Maro Engel in third, 0.006 seconds off the Italian, in the HRT Mercedes-AMG that took a resounding Race 1 victory last night.

Engel will share row two with Christopher Haase in Sainteloc Racing’s Pro Audi, while Albert Costa qualified fifth in the No. 163 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo that retired from the first race after an incident on lap one.

Giancarlo Fisichella set the Pro-Am pole time and ran sixth overall in the No. 92 Sky-Tempesta Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 that the Italian shares with Jonathan Hui.

Fisichella posted a time of 1:35.629, establishing a block of six cars between himself and fellow Sky-Tempesta driver Eddie Cheever III who was second-best in Pro-Am.

The second-quickest Silver Cup car behind Gachet’s Audi was the class winner from Saturday evening’s 60-minute contest, as Juuso Puhakka set the seventh-fastest outright lap in qualifying aboard the No. 2 Toksport WRT Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Team WRT’s pair of Pro Audis came through in eighth and ninth, with Kelvin van der Linde edging out Dries Vanthoor in the championship-leading No. 32 car.

Despite the short turnaround from Race 1 which saw several incidents, all 23 of the Sprint Cup cars took to the track in qualifying for Race 2 this afternoon, which is due to start at 1:50 p.m. local time (7:50 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: Qualifying 2