Thomas Neubauer bounced back from disappointment in last night's opening Sprint Cup race at Misano by securing another pole position in his #15 Tech 1 Lexus.
The Frenchman started Saturday's run from overall pole and led the opening stint, only for a technical issue to sideline the Silver Cup class car shortly after teammate Aurelien Panis took the wheel.
This required the Tech 1 crew to make changes overnight, but it did nothing to diminish Neubauer's speed. The #15 Lexus went top early in the session and, while there were other challengers, was not beaten thereafter.
Tommaso Mosca came closest to his pole time of 1m31.893s, lapping just 0.039s shy in the #55 Attempto Racing Audi. Another pair of R8 LMS drivers were next, with Arthur Rougier (#25 Sainteloc Racing) and Charles Weerts (#32 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT) completing the top four. The Emil Frey Racing Lamborghinis also showed well, with Giacomo Altoe and Mikael Grenier taking fifth and sixth respectively.
Neubauer will start this afternoon's race 3 with a 10-place advantage over his nearest Silver Cup contender, with Steven Palette qualifying the #26 Sainteloc Audi 11th overall and P2 in class. Pro-Am pole was also a repeat of qualifying 1, with Louis Machiels taking top spot in the #52 AF Corse Ferrari. The fiull result can be viewed via the link at the bottom of this page.
Before this afternoon's concluding race, the weekend's second contest will get going at 11.20 CET. Raffaele Marciello will start from pole at the wheel of the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG, with Kelvin Van der Linde (#31 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT) joining the Italian on the front row. All of the action will be streamed live on the GT World Challenge Europe website and Facebook pages, as well as the GT World YouTube channel.