Making his Super Sports Car League debut, Phoenix Racing driver Max Hofer secured pole position for Saturday’s race (1:15 pm start) on a wet track. In his Audi R8 LMS, the Austrian, partnered by British driver Philip Ellis, was just 0.026 seconds faster than Mirko Bortolotti in the Lamborghini from ORANGE1 by GRT Grasser with a time of 1:24.073 minutes. “I’m more than satisfied,” said Hofer. “The team have worked so well pre-season to get everything ready. Many thanks to everyone in the team and to Ernst Moser for giving me this chance. My engineer sent me out at the right time, and I drove the right lap at the right time. The race will be about learning as much as possible.”

Another rookie, Mikkel Jensen will be lining up behind Mirko Bortolotti & Andrea Caldarelli for his first race of the season. The Dane, who shares BMW Team Schnitzer’s BMW M6 GT3 with two-time DTM champion Timo Scheider, set a lap time of 1:24.578 minutes. “I was held up a few times, so could even have gone a bit faster,” said the Dane. “A podium finish in the race would be great, but you never know how things are going to work out. It’s difficult to say in the run-up to the first race where we stand as compared to the competition.”

Driving for MANN-FILTER Team HTP, Indy Dontje & Maximilian Buhk took P4 in the best-placed Mercedes-AMG GT3 from the two brothers Sheldon and Kelvin van der Linde in the Audi R8 LMS from Montaplast by Land-Motorsport.

The top position changed hands changed several times during the session on the drying track. In the end, 18 drivers were covered by just one second.