Kirchhoefer Storms to 24H Spa Pole in Garage 59 McLaren

Garage 59 took pole position for the 78th running of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa as Marvin Kirchhoefer beat Jules Gounon and Dries Vanthoor to come out on top in the Superpole shootout.

The No. 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, which was also quickest in the full-grid qualifying session on Thursday evening, put in a time of 2:15.113 to beat the No. 17 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Jules Gounon by 0.404 seconds.

Dries Vanthoor initially took third in the No. 31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO, but the Belgian has since been handed a penalty for crossing the pit exit loop 1,012 seconds earlier than the allocated time.

Those 1,012 seconds have since been added to the No. 31 car’s best lap time of 2:15.713, dropping the No. 31 car to 14th.

A similar but heavier penalty was handed out the No. 63 GRT Grsser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Jordan Pepper, which was found to have crossed the pit out loop 23,952 seconds too early. This dropped the car to the back of the Superpole field.

Kirchhoefer took McLaren’s first 24H pole position in a Superpole session that was interrupted due to a crash for the No. 34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Henrique Chaves.

The Portuguese driver was on his second flying lap when he lost control of the car exiting Fagnes, suffering a significant impact with the barriers and bringing out a red flag.

Chaves walked away from the crash unaided.

By the time of the red flag, Maxime Martin had laid down an early benchmark in the No. 9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG, with the Belgian’s 2:15.792 looking unbeatable for the majority of Superpole runners.

Towards the end of the shootout, Vanthoor was the first to go faster by posting a 2:15.713, only for that time to be almost immediately bested by Gounon’s 2:15.527.

Kirchhoefer subsequently jumped ahead of both, setting his fastest time on his first lap and securing McLaren’s first pole position for the 24H Spa.

After Vanthoor’s penalty was applied, Martin ended the session in third ahead of the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Alessio Rovera and the No. 48 Mercedes-AMG of Lucas Auer.

Franck Perera, last year’s polesitter, took sixth in the No. 163 Vincenzo Sospiri Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, while Mattia Drudi, Joel Sturm, Antonio Fuoco and Laurin Heinrich completed the top ten.

Heinrich initially appeared in pole contention on his first flying lap before a mistake at the final chicane caused him to drop a second and a half.

He managed to remain ahead of the No. 33 Verstappen dot Com Aston Martin driven by Harry King.

Raffaele Marciello and Patric Niederhauser slotted into 12 and 13th for ROWE Racing and Rutronik Racing, respectively, followed by the No. 32 Team WRT BMW of Kelvin van der Linde.

Mathieu Jaminet, Valentino Rossi, Philipp Eng were the final drivers to put in a time, as Chaves had his only flying lap deleted for causing the red flag.

Friday’s on-track running will conclude with a 30-minute warmup session scheduled for 8:05 p.m. CEST (2:05 p.m. EST).