Blackthorn and Mahiki claim a pole apiece at Spa

Giacomo Petrobelli topped GT3 Q1 by a comfortable margin before Jonny Adam withstood Marvin Kirchhöfer's pressure to complete the job in the second 10-minute session.

That was followed by Josh Miller and Jack Mitchell's GT4 masterclass despite only sampling their new G56 Evo for the first time on Friday. The scale of their combined 1.7s margin back to Century's BMW shared by Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson was truly impressive.

GT3: Petrobelli sets up Blackthorn's breakthrough

Blackthorn's Aston Martin has been a contender all season without ever really mounting a serious victory challenge. But that should change tomorrow judging by the team's qualifying performance.

Indeed, Petrobelli wasn't troubled after setting Q1's quickest time on his first flying lap. Admittedly, his and Blackthorn's cause was helped by Simon Orange losing his best lap to a track limits infringement that dropped the Orange/JMH McLaren from second to third behind Kevin Tse in 2 Seas' replacement Mercedes-AMG and Morgan Tillbrook whose final effort moved Optimum up to third.

Championship leader Charles Dawson and Barwell's Rob Collard completed the provisional top six.

Adam climbed aboard Blackthorn's Aston Martin with a 0.772s advantage over Götz, while Kirchhöfer - who set fastest time in Pre-Qualifying - started a fraction further back.

The German's rapid pace was apparent again in the second 10-minute session when his 2m15.692s reduced Adam's advantage to just a tenth. But that was as close as the 720S GT3 got to the Vantage, which improved on its second run to end up 0.3s clear in the final combined standings.

Clutton moved Orange/JMH up one spot to third at the expense of 2 Seas whose Mercedes-AMGs start fourth and sixth. They sandwich the first of Barwell's Lamborghinis after Hugo Cook jumped ahead of Kiern Jewiss in Q2.

The second Huracan and Optimum's other McLaren completed the top eight ahead of Paddock and Abba.

GT4: Mahiki makes its (new) marque

Even a change of machinery couldn’t break Mahiki Racing’s qualifying hot streak this season, with Josh Miller and Jack Mitchell scoring a crushing pole position on their first run in the team’s new Ginetta G56 GT4 Evo.

Following a switch from Lotus to the Yorkshire marque, Mahiki showed no signs of playing catch-up as both Miller and Mitchell produced record-breaking performances in their respective sessions to pull clear of their pursuers.

Both drivers hit the ground running despite only getting the Ginettas shortly before the trip to Spa. Miller’s opening Q1 effort put the #84 car 1.8s clear of anybody else and obliterated the old qualifying lap record set by Matty Graham’s Maserati back in 2017.

Harry George managed to trim the gap to 1.3s in the #17 Optimum McLaren, while a late improvement from Ravi Ramyead moved the #71 Century BMW up to third and onto provisional Pro-Am pole.

It looked unlikely anybody would overhaul Miller's advantage in Q2, and any hopes Mahiki’s rivals had were dashed when Mitchell went even faster. Track limits put paid to his first record-breaking effort, but he followed it up with another - 2m27.134s - next time around. It also means Mahiki and Miller have topped four of the five qualifying shootouts held so far this season.

Charlie Robertson was just a tenth behind, elevating himself and Ramyead up to second overall and securing Pro-Am pole, with George and Luca Hopkinson in third. Marc Warren and Jack Brown made it an all-Optimum second row in their Artura, ahead of Chris Salkeld/Branden Templeton’s Century BMW and Ed McDermott/Seb Morris’s Team Parker Racing Mercedes-AMG, which lines up on Endurance Cup pole.

Results are HERE