Stolz Puts HRT Mercedes on Pole for Magny-Cours Race 1

Luca Stolz put Haupt Racing Team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo on pole for the first of this weekend’s GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup races at Magny-Cours.

The German driver set his fastest lap time of 1:36.114 right at the end of the 20-minute qualifying session to earn the HRT squad’s first pole in GTWC Europe competition.

Stolz and Maro Engel’s car will occupy the front row of the grid for this evening’s race with the Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo qualified by Mikael Grenier.

Grenier came up just 0.077 seconds short of the pole marker but nonetheless secured Lamborghini’s first front-row start of the year across both Sprint Cup and Endurance Cup.

Silver Cup class competitor Steven Palette qualified an impressive third in the No. 26 Sainteloc Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo with a time of 1:26.410.

The French racer will start alongside Attempto Racing Audi driver Tomasso Mosca who lapped fourth-quickest, and two positions ahead of the next-highest placed Silver car which was the Madpanda Motorsport Mercedes-AMG qualified by Ezequiel Companc.

Charles Weerts put the points-leading No. 32 Team WRT Audi sixth on the grid, while Aurelien Panis was seventh in the Tech 1 Racing Lexus RC F GT3.

The AKKA-ASP Mercedes-AMG that led Friday evening’s Pre-Qualifying practice session in the hands of Raffaele Marciello ended up 15th with Timur Boguslavskiy at the wheel.

Pro-Am pole honors went to Chris Froggatt, who steered the No. 93 Sky-Tempesta Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 to a time of 1:36.926.

This put the British driver in 16th position overall and just ahead of the No. 108 CMR Bentley Continental GT3, which took part in its first official session this weekend after a fire that damaged the original chassis in pre-event testing.

Race 1 is set to get underway at 10:15 p.m. local time (4:15 p.m. EST).

RESULTS: Qualifying 1