Mies, Marciello Take Sprint Cup Poles at Brands Hatch

Christopher Mies and Raffaele Marciello claimed pole position for Sunday’s pair of Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup races at Brands Hatch.

Mies set the fastest outright lap in qualifying to put the No. 27 Sainteloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II on pole for Race 2, shortly after Marciello went quickest in the opening 20-minute session for Akkodis ASP.

Marciello had set a purple first sector when Christian Engelhart spun his Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3 R into the Stirling’s gravel, triggering a red flag that thwarted a potential pole run for the No. 88 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

However, the Swiss ace ensured he got to the head of the field for the one-lap shootout after the stoppage and used the clean air to his advantage, posting a time of 1:22.258.

Marciello, who went three-tenths quicker than anyone else in the session, prevented Emil Frey Racing from locking out the front row of the Race 1 grid in its first race with the new Ferrari 296 GT3.

Instead, Albert Costa settled for second ahead of Konsta Lappalainen after making a late improvement to leapfrog his teammate.

Mattia Drudi ranked fourth for Audi squad Tresor Orange 1, beating reigning Sprint Cup champion Charles Weerts in the No. 32 BMW M4 GT3 run by Team WRT.

The Emil Frey Ferraris also featured at the sharp end in the second session, but it was Audi factory stalwarts Mies and Christopher Haase who claimed a one-two for the German manufacturer.

Mies initially held provisional pole when the red flags came out after nine minutes due to a spin for Lorenzo Patrese into the Paddock Hill Bend gravel.

When action resumed, Thierry Vermeulen shot to the top of the 29-car order in the No. 69 Emil Frey Ferrari but the lap time was swiftly deleted due to a track limits infraction.

However, Vermeuelen’s teammate Giacomo Altoe produced a clean lap time in the No. 14 Ferrari that was also the quickest in the field, while Maxime Martin slotted the No. 46 WRT BMW into second after his co-driver Valentino Rossi qualified 20th for Race 1.

They were then quickly superseded by Mies, who produced a time of 1:21.716 to post the fastest lap of the weekend so far.

Pre-Qualifying leader Haase then rose to second in the No. 11 Comtoyou Racing Audi, dropping Altoe to third. Martin ended up finishing fifth after a late improvement from Sainteloc Audi driver Patric Niederhauser.

Gilles Magnus qualified sixth overall in the No. 21 Comtoyou Audi to take pole in Gold Cup. He shared that honor with Aurelien Panis who led the class in the first session.

The pole positions in Silver Cup went to Tresor Attempto Racing Audi driver Alex Aka and AF Corse’s Nicola Marinangelli respectively.

RESULTS: Qualifying 1 / Qualifying 2