WRT Sweeps Qualifying Sessions to Take Hockenheim Pole

Team WRT’s Dries Vanthoor, Kelvin van der Linde and Charles Weerts claimed pole for the 3 Hours of Hockenheim after their car led each of Sunday morning’s qualifying sessions.

The drivers of the No. 32 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II combined for an average time of 1:37.478 to take their second pole of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup campaign, following on from the Imola season-opener.

Vanthoor kicked things off with a 1:37.625 lap that topped the opening session, with the Belgian narrowly beating Iron Lynx Ferrari driver Alessio Rovera by 0.034 seconds.

Van der Linde then produced a 1:37.480 to lead Q2, before Weerts posted the quickest time of all in the third and final run.

Rovera’s co-driver Antonio Fuoco pushed for a late improvement but came up a tenth short of Weerts’ 1:37.329 number.

Rovera, Fuoco and Davide Rigon, who finished seventh in the second session, combined for the second-best average time overall in their No. 71 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020.

The Iron Lynx trio qualified one place ahead of the No. 63 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini crew of Jack Aitken, Albert Costa and Mirko Bortolotti.

Audis fared well as the Pro-class contenders from Tresor by Car Collection and Sainteloc Junior Team came through in fourth and sixth, sandwiching the No. 111 JP Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3.

The other Iron Lynx Ferrari qualified seventh in the hands of James Calado, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen.

They will start one place in front of the Silver Cup pole-sitting No. 30 WRT Audi driven by category points leaders and TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa class winners Thomas Neubauer, Benjamin Goethe and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer.

However, the outright 24 Hours of Spa winners, sharing the No. 88 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, struggled in their first Endurance Cup outing since that win.

Raffaele Marciello was surprisingly low down the order in 11th at the end of Q1, while his co-drivers Daniel Juncadella and Jules Gounon also failed to reach the top 10 during their sessions. The best Mercedes-AMG was GetSpeed’s No. 2 machine in ninth.

Pole in the Gold Cup class went to the Herberth Motorsport Porsche trio of Robert Renauer, Alfred Renauer and Ralf Bohn.

In Pro-Am, Garage 59 led the pack with its No. 188 McLaren driven by Miguel Ramos, Alexander West and Henrique Chaves who ranked 25th overall and put 13 cars from other categories between their entry and second in class.

Their cause was aided by Chaves setting the third-fastest lap time overall in Q3.

The 3 Hours of Hockenheim is due to start at 3 p.m. CEST (9 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying (combined)