Team WRT Audi surges to dominant Hockenheim pole

Team WRT Audi surges to dominant Hockenheim pole

Team WRT took a dominant pole position for this afternoon's Fanatec Endurance race at Hockenheim thanks to a perfect performance from its #32 Audi crew. 

All three drivers set the fastest time in their respective qualifying sessions, with Dries Vanthoor, Kelvin van der Linde and Charles Weerts each proving unbeatable. The latter ran last and posted a 1m37.329s, the best time of the day, to cap a brilliant showing.  

The #32 will share the front row of the grid with the #71 Iron Lynx Ferrari, which was second-quickest in Q1 and Q3 courtesy of Alessio Rovera and Antonio Fuoco respectively. Davide Rigon was P7 in his session, leaving the Ferrari 0.138s shy of pole on average times. 

The second row will consist of the #63 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini (Aitken/Costa/Bortolotti) and the #12 Tresor by Car Collection Audi (Hasse/Drudi/Ghiotto). JP Motorsport completed the top-five with its #111 McLaren, which along with the Audi appeared to be the most effective car at Hockenheim.

Team WRT doubled up by sealing Silver Cup pole, giving its #30 Audi crew of Thomas Neubauer, Benji Goethe and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer a fine chance to seal their class title this afternoon. They will start eighth overall, 13 places clear of their closest championship contenders Attempto Racing. The #14 Emil Frey Lamborghini qualified second in class and P12 overall.

Gold Cup pole went to the #911 Herberth Motorsport Porsche shared by Ralf Bohn, Robert Renauer and Alfred Renauer. The German squad qualified 18th overall, six spots clear of the #7 Inception Racing McLaren. The championship-leading Iron Dames Ferrari will start 33rd overall and fourth in class. 

In Pro-Am, Garage 59 sealed pole position thanks to the #188 McLaren crew of Alexander West, Miguel Ramos and Henrique Chaves. They qualified a fine 25th overall, aided by Chaves posting the third-fastest lap in Q3. 

The biggest surprise of the day was a lowly 14th-place on the grid for the championship-leading #88 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG. It became clear that the crew did not have front-running pace when Raffaele Marciello finished 11th in Q1, exactly half a second shy of Vanthoor and still the best of the Mercedes-AMG runners. 

Neither Dani Juncadella nor Jules Gounon could break into the top-10 in their sessions, giving the car its worst grid slot since the final round of 2020. Ultimately the #2 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG was able to qualify ninth, largely thanks to a stellar lap from Luca Stolz in Q2. BMW also struggled on home turf as its ROWE Racing-run Pro cars qualified 22nd and 29th. 

This weekend's main event gets underway at 15:00 CEST. All of the the action will air in English, German, French and Italian on the GTWorld YouTube channel.