Marschall Puts Bronze Cup Audi on Pole for Valencia Race 1

Dennis Marschall secured his first overall pole position of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup season by beating Raffaele Marciello in qualifying for Race 1 at Valencia.

The German driver steered the Bronze Cup-entered No. 66 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II to a best lap of 1:30.486 in the closing minutes of the session to go fastest, jumping Marciello by just 0.064 seconds.

The No. 88 Akkodis ASP Team Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo appeared to have pole locked down when Marciello reeled off a 1:30.550, which was quick enough to withstand a late improvement from the No. 69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 in the hands of Thierry Vermeulen.

It was then that Marschall jumped to the top in the No. 66 Audi, which he shares with Andrey Mukovoz. It marked the first overall Sprint Cup pole position for a Bronze Cup entry since the class was introduced at the start of the year.

Vermeulen ended the session in third behind Marciello, with the No. 14 Ferrari of Konsta Lappalainen slotting into fourth to create an all-Emil Frey second row.

Frederic Vervisch completed the top five in the No. 12 Comtoyou Racing Audi, ahead of the No. 21 machine piloted by Gilles Magnus.

Magnus sat atop the timesheets ahead of Marciello by the end of the opening run but dropped down to sixth despite an improvement, securing Gold Cup pole in the process.

Ayhancan Guven and Henrique Chaves, who both leaped up to third place at the tail end of the session, filtered down to seventh and eighth place.

Christian Klien picked up ninth aboard the No. 111 JP Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, with Ricardo Feller rounding out the top ten in the No. 40 Tresor Orange 1 Audi.

The opening Sprint Cup race of the weekend kicks off at 2 p.m. CEST (8 a.m. EDT), with live coverage on the GT World YouTube channel.