Garage 59 McLaren leads the way to Superpole at Spa 24h

The session determined the 20 cars that will contest Friday afternoon’s Superpole, while also setting grid positions 21 through 75. Three class poles have already been decided, while the Gold Cup battle will be settled tomorrow.

The Garage 59 entry was fast in all three of its sessions (three-driver crews skipped Q1). CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa rookie Joseph Loake was highly impressive, placing second to Dries Vanthoor (#31 Team WRT BMW) in Q2, while Marvin Kirchhöfer topped Q3 with a superb effort of 2m16.221s.

This gave Benjamin Goethe a golden opportunity to secure top spot, and the German delivered with a 2m16.315s, good enough for fourth in the session and a very comfortable P1. This segment was led by another Garage 59 entry as Jack Hawksworth set the fastest time of the entire Qualifying – a 2m16.214s – in the #188 machine.

The #59 Garage 59 McLaren will run last in Superpole, preceded by the other 19 cars that secured their spot this evening. BMW will be represented by five cars, three from Team WRT and two from ROWE Racing. Porsche has four from Schumacher CLRT, Dinamic GT, Rutronik Racing and Herberth Motorsport, while Mercedes-AMG has three shots at pole thanks to GetSpeed, Team Mann-Filter and Boutsen VDS.

There will be three cars from Aston Martin (Comtoyou Racing, Verstappen.com Racing and Walkenhorst Motorsport) and two each from Ferrari (both AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors) and Lamborghini (VSR and Grasser Racing). McLaren is the only brand with a single shot at Superpole – and, on the evidence of Qualifying, it has the best chance of all.

Gold Cup pole will be settled in Superpole with both the Verstappen.com Aston Martin and the Herberth Porsche going for top spot. The other three classes were settled on Thursday. Century Motorsport paced the Silver Cup and very nearly broke into Superpole, placing 21st with its #42 BMW. Bronze Cup honours went to the #66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi, while the AV Racing by Car Collection Motorsport Porsche did the job in Pro-Am.

Qualifying brought three red flags during Q1 and another in Q3. The most serious came in Q1 after Tim Sandtler hit the barriers hard at Raidillon in the #611 Nordique Racing Mercedes-AMG. The German squad took no further part in Qualifying and will focus on making the start of Saturday's race.

The same is true of the #81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG, which did not contest Qualifying after Gabrielle Piana's accident in Pre-Qualifying. Repairs are underway, while Piana has already been back on-track in GT4 Europe.

Superpole takes place on Friday at 16:10 CEST and will see each crew nominate one driver to complete two flying laps of Spa-Francorchamps. They will run in reverse order to their finishing positions in tonight's session, with the Garage 59 squad rolling off last in the battle for pole. This will be followed later in the day by a 30-minute Warm-Up, which gets underway at 20:05 and is open to the full field.

Results are HERE