Marciello Takes Pole For Spa 24 Hours

The #88 Mercedes-AMG Team AKKA ASP will start the Total 24 Hours of Spa from the front of the grid after a Raffaele Marciello set a 2:32.166 on a slippery track in gathering gloom and darkness in this evening’s Super Pole session.

The session though was somewhat spoiled for many observers due to the decision taken from the start of the meeting, with a significant reduction in available trackside observers, to only monitor track limits at Raidillon – that left cars running comically wide at several points on the circuit, in particular out of the Bus Stop with cars running close to the tyre wall to launch themselves as fast as possible to the timing line.

Second fastest and starting alongside the #88 was the #31 Audi Sport Team WRT R8 LMS of Kelvin van der Linde whose first effort was just under a quarter of a second shy of Marciello’s mark with his second flier starting well, the Audi man inside the pole position pace until a mistake out of Pouhon let the opportunity slip away.

The South African had though prevented an all AMG front row, Maro Engel third fastest at the end of the session in the #4 HRT AMG.

Completing row two will be another Audi, this time the #66 Audi Sport Team Attempto racing car of Frederic Vervisch, seven tenths from the pole time.

Fifth fastest was a third Audi, this time the #25 Sainteloc car, Christopher Haase edging out the #40 GPX Racing Porsche of Thomas Preining that will start alongside on row three by a hundredth of a second.

The #51 Ferrari, #63 Lamborghini, #163 Lamborghini and #47 Porsche completed the top 10.

Raffaele Marciello, #88 Mercedes-AMG Team AKKA ASP: “It was a good qualifying for us. It’s always good to start in the top-five so that you can stay away from trouble at the beginning of the race. We expect a dry start tomorrow, so we did not change the car too much. We slightly adapted the tyre pressures in order to find the sweet spot more easily. The absence of track limits does not change much for me; it’s the same for everyone. They said we could do it, so we did it.”

Total 24 Hours of Spa_Super Pole_ResultList_2_0

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