Switzerland’s Jean-Luc D´Auria from the Emil Frey Racing team was the fastest driver in the second ADAC GT Masters qualifying session at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. The Ferrari racer secured his first pole position in the series with a time of 2:16.423 minutes on Sunday morning. “I am very happy to finally be on pole after all the hard work. It means an awful lot to me and I am particularly pleased for my team Emil Frey Racing. It is now important to give it everything in the race, in order to claim our first win of the season,” said D´Auria, who shares the Italian GT3 car with compatriot Alain Valente.
Sunday’s qualifying started in summery temperatures and ideal weather conditions. Once the drivers had got the Pirelli tyres up to the optimal operating temperature, the spectators around the 7.004-kilometre Ardennes Rollercoaster witnessed the initial fast times. First to set a benchmark was Nico Hantke (Hürth) in the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Walkenhorst Motorsport. However, D´Auria bettered this time by 0.047 seconds in his Ferrari 296 GT3, before a crash involving Filipino Eduardo Coseteng (FK Performance) in the Blanchimont section of the circuit, resulted in a brief interruption with five minutes remaining. When the session resumed, more drama unfolded in the battle for the fastest time. Several drivers used the final remaining minutes to launch another assault on pole position for race eight of the season. However, the Swiss driver’s time remained unbeaten and D´Auria secured the first pole position of the season for Ferrari and Emil Frey Racing. Second place went to Chandler Hull and Hantke in an Aston Martin, ahead of Saturday’s winners Tom Kalender (Hamm/Sieg) and Elias Seppänen (FIN) in the Landgraf Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3. Mike David Ortmann (Ahrensfelde) and Denis Bulatov (Cologne) were fourth fastest for Walkenhorst Motorsport in another Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Leon Köhler (Erlenbach am Main) and Maxime Oosten (NL/both FK Performance) qualified fifth in their BMW M4 GT3.
The second sprint race of the season gets underway at 13:55. The drivers will have just 40 minutes on the track, so action is guaranteed from the first second. Race eight of the season is available in German and English via a livestream on the free ADAC Motorsport YouTube channel at youtube.com/@ADACMotorsports. Television partner Sport1 will show the highlights on free-to-air German TV at 17:00.
