Dries Vanthoor will start this afternoon's Fanatec GT Europe Sprint Cup race at Misano from the front of the grid after securing Team WRT's first pole position since joining forces with BMW.
Vanthoor posted a 1m30.976s to beat Patric Niederhauser (#25 Saintéloc Junior Team Audi) to top spot, edging the Swiss by just 0.080s. Despite missing pole it was a superb comeback from the French team after the #25 car failed to participate in yesterday's qualifying due to an engine problem.
The pace of the BMW M4 was confirmed by Maxime Martin qualifying third in the #46 entry he shares with Valentino Rossi. Konsta Lappalainen continued Emil Frey Racing's strong Misano form by taking fourth in the #14 Ferrari, followed by Christopher Haase in the #11 Comtoyou Racing Audi. Yesterday's race-winning #88 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG will start 11th with Timur Boguslavskiy at the wheel.
Sixth overall went to the #26 Saintéloc Junior Team Audi of Simon Gachet, who earned Gold Cup pole in the process. In the Silver Cup, teenager Nicola Marinangeli make a strong impression by qualifying 17th overall and bagging class pole in the #71 AF Corse Ferrari.
The Bronze Cup saw series newcomer Dmitry Gvazava secure a fine 24th overall on the 42-car grid, beating seven entrants from the Pro, Gold and Silver categories. This earned class pole for the Lamborghini driver, narrowly ahead of the #188 Garage 59 McLaren of Miguel Ramos.
This afternoon's race will get underway at 14:00 CEST. As ever, the action will be streamed live in English, French, German and Italian on the GT World YouTube channel.
