24hrs Spa: Marciello grabs pole for Mercedes

Text: Rick Kiewiet

Images: SRO Media

Raffaele Marciello is slowly growing out to be the Pole King of the 24hrs of Spa, as he took his 2nd pole in a row in tonight's Super Pole shootout. With a 2:17:949 he's the only driver under 2:18 and just over three tenths clear of the rest of the field. Even his second time would have been enough to secure p1. The Italian will share the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes with teammates Dani Juncadella and Jules Gounon. It will be the third time in a row a Mercedes will lead the pack towards Eau Rouge in lap 1.

Alongside Marciello will start Mirko Bortolotti in the #63 Orange 1 FFF Lamborghini. After pole positions in the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup outings in Monza and Paul Ricard, this will be the first time this season the #63 won't start from pole.

The Dane Train, the #95 Garage 59 Aston with Thiim and Sorensen, supplemented with Ross Gunn, was originally third but was dealt a 0.254s time-penalty for leaving his pitbox too late. The will have to commence the race from p8. This gave p3 to the second Mercedes, the #4 HRT of Maro Engel.

Pole in the Silver cup went to Ricardo Feller in the #14 Emil Frey Lamborghini. The young Swiss had already set the fastest qualifying time over all last night's qualifying sessions.

Sheldon van der Linde qualified his #34 Walkenhorst BMW in p5, which makes David Pittard the highest classified Brit on the grid tomorrow.

Ben Barnicoat, Ollie Wilkinson and Rob Bell will start the race in their #38 JOTA McLaren very well up the field from p6.

First of the Audi's is the #66 Attempto car of Drudi (that qualified the car), Marschall and Mies in p7, while the first of the Porsche's is only in p9: Mathieu Jaminet in the #22 GPX Martini car.

A bit more was expected from the #51 and #71 Iron Lynx Ferrari's in p13 and p18, the 20th grid position of the #47 KCMG Porsche of Tandy, Martin and Laurens Vanthoor is outright disappointing.