The Herberth Motorsport customer squad caused a surprise in the Superpole session of the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps: The 911 GT3 R of Joel Sturm, Tim Heinemann and gentlemen driver Rolf Ineichen tackles the endurance classic as the best Porsche from ninth place. This puts the trio in pole position in the Gold Cup standings, so to speak. The Schumacher CLRT, Rutronik Racing and Dinamic GT teams finished the individual time trial in eleventh, 15th and 17th place.

In the 30-minute Superpole session on Friday afternoon, the 20 best-placed drivers of qualifying competed against each other in the individual time trial. The GT3 race cars started every minute on the 7.004-kilometre Grand Prix circuit in the Belgian Ardennes. For each vehicle, the better of two flying laps counted. Of the eleven Porsche 911 GT3 R taking part in this year's 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, four made it into this top 20 competition on Thursday evening. They fought for pole position on a dry track with an initial temperature of 26 degrees Celsius and moderate air temperatures of 18 degrees.

Strong qualifying for Herberth Motorsport

Of the four 911 GT3 R drivers, Joel Sturm was the first to take to the track. As one of the few participants, the man from Brühl achieved a feat with the up to 416 kW (565 hp) No. 92 Porsche of the Herberth Motorsport customer team: he was able to improve his already good time of the first flying lap by almost half a second at the second attempt in 2:16.127 minutes. For him and his teammates Rolf Ineichen from Switzerland and Tim Heinemann from Germany, ninth place on the grid jumped out at the end, equivalent to first place among the racing cars from the gold classification.

Laurin Heinrich already had his sights set on a strong result when he narrowly missed the braking point before the last chicane at the end of his first lap. In the second attempt, the Würzburg native improved to eleventh place. The reigning IMSA GTD Pro champion shares the Porsche of the French team Schumacher CLRT with DTM race winner Ayhancan Güven and Klaus Bachler from Austria, the current champion of the FIA Endurance Trophy for LMGT3 drivers.

Patric Niederhauser set a lap time of 2:16.668 minutes on his first attempt in the No. 96 Porsche fielded by Rutronik Racing, which he could not match on his second lap. The Swiss will compete together with the Belgian Alessio Picariello and Sven Müller from Germany. The trio will start the race on Saturday from 15th position.

Superpole session briefly stopped after accident

Porsche works driver Mathieu Jaminet was unlucky: after his first attempt in 2m 17.068s, he had to abandon his second attempt because the Superpole session was temporarily stopped after an accident. He was then allowed to do another flying lap, but narrowly missed his own best time on the same tyres. Together with the Australian Matt Campbell – the two currently lead the North American IMSA series with the Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 hybrid prototype – and the Dane Bastian Buus, the Frenchman will tackle the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps from 17th place.

"Unfortunately, we fell far short of our expectations – even though I would like to highlight Joel Sturm's performance: With ninth place in the Superpole session for Herberth Motorsport and first place among the Gold Cup participants, he proved that he is doing a great job," says Sebastian Golz, Project Manager Porsche 911 GT3 R. "Unfortunately, Laurin Heinrich made a small driving mistake on his fast lap, so there was no top time within reach for him. 15th place for Patric Niederhauser and the Rutronik Racing team is a solid result. Unfortunately, Mathieu Jaminet drove into a red phase. In his second attempt, he was no longer able to get the tyres into the required working window. Anyway, we're now concentrating on the race, the score won't be settled here at Spa-Francorchamps until after 24 hours on this demanding track."

With 75 racing cars entered, the 24-hour classic on the Ardennes circuit is the world's largest event for GT3 cars. The race counts as the third round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup (GTWC) and the Intercontinental GT Challenge (IGTC). Drivers and teams receive points for the GTWC after six, twelve and 24 hours. The website www.intercontinentalgtchallenge.com will broadcast the race in a multilingual live stream.

Comments on Superpole

Joel Sturm (Porsche 911 GT3 R #92): "I managed a pretty good lap – I don't think more would have been possible. With pole position in the Gold Cup, we've achieved our minimum goal, and we're also starting as the best Porsche. In terms of performance, however, we are still a bit lacking compared to the competition. Let's see how it goes for us in the race."

Laurin Heinrich (Porsche 911 GT3 R #22): "We were hoping for a place in the top 10, but to start the biggest GT3 race in the world from eleventh position is not a bad starting position either. Unfortunately, not everything worked perfectly for us in Superpole. But we have a good car and still a warm-up ahead of us in which we can make the final fine-tuning."

Patric Niederhauser (Porsche 911 GT3 R #96): "I always think it's cool when I get to drive the Superpole here at Spa. Our 911 GT3 R worked very well and I managed two good laps. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for the front, but the race is long – I'm looking forward to it."

Mathieu Jaminet (Porsche 911 GT3 R #18): "This session didn't go well for us because of the red flag – the interruption came in the middle of my second fast lap. After that, I had to try again with the same tyres. Of course, this is suboptimal, but that's the rules. At the end of the day, it doesn't make much difference, because the race lasts twice around the clock. Nevertheless, there is still a little work ahead of us for tomorrow."

Results Superpole session

1st (1st Pro) Loake/Kirchhöfer/Goethe (GBR/CHE/DEU), McLaren #59, 2m 15.113s
2nd (2nd Pro) Stolz/Gounon/Schiller (DEU/AND/DEU), Mercedes-AMG #17, 2m 15.527s
3rd (3rd Pro) Vanthoor/Van der Linde/Wittmann (BEL/ZAF/DEU), BMW #31, 2m 15.713s
9th (1st GC) Ineichen/Heinemann/Sturm (CHE/DEU/DEU), Herberth Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #92, 2m 16.127s
11th (10th Pro) Bachler/Güven/Heinrich (AUT/TUR/DEU), Schumacher CLRT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #22, 2m 16.214s
15th (13th Pro) Müller/ Niederhauser/Picariello (DEU/CHE/BEL), Rutronik Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #96, 2m 16.668s
17th (15th Pro) Buus/Campbell/Jaminet (DNK/AUS/FRA), Dinamic GT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #18, 2m 17.068s

The other grid positions (result of the qualifying on Thursday)

22nd (3rd GC) Adelson/Skeer/Sargent (USA/USA/AUS), Wright Motorsports, Porsche 911 GT3 R #120, 2m 18.428s
23rd (19th Pro) Lietz/Malykhin/Preining (AUT/GBR/AUT), Pure Rxcing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #911, 2m 18.443s
45th (8th BC) Rindone/Kolb/Feller/Pera (FRA/DEU/CHE/ITA), Lionspeed GP, Porsche 911 GT3 R #80, 2m 21.433s
46th (6th SC) Rappange/Al Rifai/Pieris/Baud (NLD/ARE/LKA/FRA), Dinamic GT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #54, 2m 21.439s
57th (13th BC) Schuring/Au/Hartog/Rump (NLD/HKG/NLD/EST), Rutronik Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #97, 2m 22.148s
58th (14th BC) Bohn/A. Renauer/R. Renauer/Jefferies (DEU/DEU/DEU/ZWE), Herberth Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #91, 2m 22.176s
61st (1st PAM) Abramczyk/Detry/Duffieux/Yuan (FRA/BEL/BEL/CHN), AV Racing by Car Collection Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #29, 2m 22.588s

Pro = Pro class; PAM = Pro-Am Cup; GC = Gold Cup; SC = Silver Cup; BC = Bronze Cup

All results under https://www.gt-world-challenge-europe.com/watch-live