Marciello Takes Third Pole of Sprint Cup Season

Raffaele Marciello took his third pole of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup season ahead of Sunday’s 60-minute race at Zandvoort.

The Akkodis ASP driver reeled off a time of 1:32.093, the fastest lap of the weekend so far, in the No. 89 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo that he shares with Timur Boguslavskiy.

It continued a 100 percent qualifying record for Marciello in Sprint Cup this season, with the AMG factory driver topping all three sessions that he has taken part in so far.

Marciello and Boguslavskiy are aiming to bounce back from their zero points score at Zandvoort on Saturday, when Team WRT’s winning pairing of Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor replaced them at the head of the Sprint championship standings.

Vincent Abril brought the No. 112 JP Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 onto the front row of the grid with a 1:32.660 effort, leaving Marciello just over half a second clear at the top.

Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo IIs will occupy the second row for Sunday afternoon’s 60-minute race, with Dennis Marschall taking third in qualifying for Attempto Racing.

The driver of the No. 66 Audi was one of few competitors to improve after a red flag that came with three minutes left in the session, after Garage 59’s Ethan Simioni nosed his McLaren wide into the Turn 9 gravel.

Marschall placed ahead of Vanthoor, who qualified fourth in the No. 32 WRT Audi that claimed maximum points on Saturday.

Dean MacDonald claimed an impressive fifth place overall in the Pro-Am pole-sitting No. 188 Garage 59 McLaren with a time of 1:32.808.

MacDonald, a race winner in the GT4 arena, narrowly beat JP Motorsport’s Christian Klien to the class pole by 0.051 seconds, as three 720S GT3s made it into the top six.

Christian Engelhart was seventh for Porsche squad Dinamic Motorsport, ahead of Jim Pla driving the No. 88 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG that took second in Race 1.

The two Tresor by Car Collection Audis qualified by factory drivers Christopher Haase and Mattia Drudi placed on the fifth row and completed the top 10.

The Silver Cup pole-sitter could be found in 13th courtesy of Nicolas Schoell’s 1:33.195 number at the wheel of the No. 99 Attempto Racing Audi.

His nearest class challenger on the grid will be AF Corse Ferrari driver Pierre-Alexandre Jean, who qualified 15th behind No. 46 WRT Audi driver Frederic Vervisch.

The second race of the Zandvoort meeting, and the sixth race of the Sprint Cup season, takes place at 2 p.m. CEST (8 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying 2