Laurens Vanthoor best Audi driver on starting grid

Five Audi cars in super pole qualifying

Audi second-best brand in world’s largest GT3 field

Audi is pleased with its own performance after the super pole qualifying session for 24 Hours of Spa. Following impeccable and thorough preparation, the brand with the four rings presents itself as the second-best manufacturer in the field of the eleven automotive brands.

In his home round, Laurens Vanthoor achieved the best performance of all Audi drivers. The Belgian in the Audi R8 LMS of Audi Sport Team WRT qualified for grid position seven. “My lap wasn’t completely perfect, but basically we made good use of our possibilities,” said the 2014 Spa winner. “Admittedly, there was a clear gap to the top. Now, it’s important to get through the race without any mistakes with my teammates Nico Müller and René Rast.”

The Frenchman Franck Perera in the Audi of Team I.S.R. Racing took eighth place and Christopher Haase (D) achieved position twelve for Saintéloc Racing. Directly trailing them, Robin Frijns (NL) qualified for Belgian Audi Club Team WRT and Christopher Mies (D) for Audi Sport Team Phoenix.

“All Audi customer teams intensively prepared for the GT3 race with the toughest competition of the year,” said Chris Reinke, Head of Audi Sport customer racing. “The forces are distributed to several teams. Thanks to our customers, we’re well set in terms of quantity and quality this year.”

Four teams with eleven race cars and 36 drivers are relying on the Audi R8 LMS in the Ardennes on the last weekend in July. Before the single timed laps in the super pole qualifying session on Friday, five other Audi teams took their grid positions in qualifying. Team Saintéloc Racing with the number 25 Audi is in position 25, making it the ninth-best team in the Pro-Am classification. Belgian Audi Club Team WRT took positions 27 (number 1), 43 (number 4) and 45 (number 3). I.S.R. Racing claimed position 36 with number 75. The number 27 Audi of Saintéloc Racing is in grid position 50 of the overall classification as the third-best squad in the amateur class.

The 24 Hours of Spa will start on Saturday, July 30, at 16:30. Full-length live coverage of the race will be provided at www.blancpain-gt-series.com.

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Qualifying results

1 Maximilian Götz (Mercedes #86) 2m 17.651s

2 Clemens Schmid (Mercedes #85) 2m 18.025s

3 Felix Rosenqvist (Mercedes #88) 2m 18.034s

4 Maro Engel (Mercedes #00) 2m 18.223s

5 Maximilian Buhk (Mercedes #84) 2m 18.259s

6 Dani Juncadella (Mercedes #56) 2m 18.328s

7 Laurens Vanthoor (Audi #28) 2m 18.505s

8 Franck Perera (Audi #74) 2m 18.547s

9 Mirko Bortolotti (Lamborghini #16) 2m 18.691s

10 Maxime Soulet (Bentley #8) 2m 18.698s