After qualifying on Thursday evening, it is clear: In the Superpole session for the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, four of the eleven Porsche 911 GT3 R will be able to compete in the individual time trial. They are thus among the 20 race cars that will fight for the front grid positions on Friday from 16:10 (CEST).

As the best customer team, Schumacher CLRT finished qualifying in third place. The No. 18 Dinamic GT car finished eleventh. The No. 96 Porsche fielded by Rutronik Racing finished 17th and Herbert Motorsport finished qualifying in 19th place with its No. 92 car. The endurance classic on the Belgian Grand Prix circuit not far from the German border starts on Saturday at 16:30 (CEST).

Qualifying

A total of 75 GT3 cars took part in qualifying. It consisted of four segments of 15 minutes each, so that each driver had to set a lap time. In the end, the result results from the average time of all drivers. The first section was eventful with nightfall and cool temperatures of around 20 degrees Celsius. Immediately after its start, the rain returned to the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, which had just dried. Before a participant could complete a flying lap, the session had to be interrupted due to an accident. When the lights turned green again, red flags came out again after only two minutes. In the third attempt, most, but not all, drivers set a time, then the session stopped again. All five Porsches that took part had finally set a time and thus in principle kept their chances of progressing.

With an average lap time of 2:17.016 minutes, former Porsche Juniors Klaus Bachler from Austria, Ayhancan Güven from Turkey and Laurin Heinrich from Würzburg finished qualifying in third place. The trio will compete for the French Porsche customer team Schumacher CLRT. The number 18 race car from Dinamic GT finished eleventh. Here, too, three former juniors will be at the wheel: the Dane Bastian Buus and the two works drivers Matt Campbell from Australia and Mathieu Jaminet. 17th place went to the No. 96 Rutronik Racing car, which Patric Niederhauser from Switzerland shares with Sven Müller and Alessio Picariello. The Swabian and the Belgian have also gone through Porsche's Junior Programme. The fourth 911 GT3 R crew was Rolf Ineichen from Switzerland and the two Germans Tim Heinemann and Joel Sturm in 19th place. They will represent Herberth Motorsport on Friday as one of only two teams from the Gold Cup classification in the Superpole session.

"Four 911 GT3 R qualified for the Superpole session: that's a solid qualifying result and gives us a positive look forward to Friday," emphasises Sebastian Golz, Project Manager 911 GT3 R. "Schumacher CLRT put in a strong performance. Dinamic GT and Rutronik Racing were also each able to position a Porsche well in the Pro category over the three sessions. In addition, Herberth Motorsport caused a real surprise and finished in the top 20 with the No. 92 car – a really strong result for a participant from the Gold Cup."

Wright Motorsport from the USA narrowly missed out on the round of the top 20 in 22nd place and Pure Rxcing in 23rd. Both teams were less than 0.160 seconds short of progressing.

20 GT3 race cars fight for pole position

With the 30-minute Superpole session, the decisive hunt for the top 20 grid positions begins on Friday afternoon at 16:10 (CEST) in the individual time trial. With 75 race cars entered, the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps is the largest event for GT3 cars in the world. As in previous years, the endurance race is part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge and the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup and is the third round on the programme this season. For the GT World Challenge classification, drivers and teams receive points after six, twelve and 24 hours.

From Pro to Bronze: the class divisions

As the organiser of the GT World Challenge Europe, the SRO Motorsports Group is tendering five classes based on the official FIA driver classification: Pro, Pro-Am, Gold Cup, Silver Cup and Bronze Cup. The silver category, for example, provides for four riders with silver status. In the Gold Cup, the combination of one "Silver" and two or three "Gold" drivers is eligible to start. In the Bronze Cup, on the other hand, a maximum of one pilot may have platinum, the second silver and the third bronze status. If a fourth driver joins the crew, he can only come from the Silver class. A special feature of the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps is the Pro-Am League: Here, two drivers must be classified as bronze drivers, the other two are exempt. There are no restrictions in the Pro class, which is why mostly pure professional constellations with platinum status start in this classification. However, only three drivers per race car are allowed. Therefore, the participants in this classification have to skip the first of the four qualifying segments.

Live coverage of the race in the stream and in the app

Fans at home and at the track can follow the entire programme at Spa-Francorchamps via the official GT World Challenge app. It is available for Android and Apple devices in the respective app stores. The website www.intercontinentalgtchallenge.com offers live streaming as well as live timing.

Drivers' comments after qualifying

Laurin Heinrich (Porsche 911 GT3 R #22): "Qualifying started later than planned due to the red flags for us, so I drove completely in the dark. The drying track didn't make it any easier. For me, the fact that I wasn't in the car at all in free practice made things even worse – I only drove my first laps at this event in qualifying. But we racing drivers love exactly such challenges. Now I'm happy that we can fight for pole position tomorrow in the biggest GT3 race in the world."

Bastian Buus (Porsche 911 GT3 R #18): "We made it into Superpole, which was the most important thing for today's session. We had to fight a bit in the afternoon pre-qualifying and didn't know exactly what to expect in qualifying. But we have progressed."

Patric Niederhauser (Porsche 911 GT3 R #96): "17th place in the overall standings – we had hoped for a bit more, but we're competing in Superpole and have achieved the minimum goal. There is still some work ahead of us because we are not completely satisfied with our pace yet. Now we're focusing on tomorrow because we want to find something for Superpole in the first step and then for the race."

Tim Heinemann (Porsche 911 GT3 R #92): "There was a lot of tension at the end because it was pretty close for us. We are all the more satisfied with second place in our class and 19th place overall. Of course, we had somehow set the Superpole as our goal. The fact that we actually qualified for it puts us in a great starting position."

Provisional qualifying result

1st (1st Pro) Loake/Kirchhöfer/Goethe (GBR/CHE/DEU), McLaren #59, 2m 16.454s
2nd (2nd Pro) Vanthoor/Van der Linde/Wittmann (BEL/ZAF/DEU), BMW #31, 2m 16.959s
3rd (3rd Pro) Bachler/Güven/Heinrich (AUT/TUR/DEU), Schumacher CLRT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #22, 2m 17.016s
11th (11th Pro) Buus/Campbell/Jaminet (DNK/AUS/FRA), Dinamic GT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #18, 2m 17.437s
17th (16th Pro) Müller/ Niederhauser/Picariello (DEU/CHE/BEL), Rutronik Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #96, 2m 17.795s
19th (2nd gold) Ineichen/Heinemann/Sturm (CHE/DEU/DEU), Herberth Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #92, 2m 18.040s
22nd (3rd gold) 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 #911s, 2m 18.443s
45th (8th bronze) Rindone/Kolb/Feller/Pera (FRA/DEU/CHE/ITA), Lionspeed GP, Porsche 911 GT3 R #80, 2m 21.433s
46th (6th Silver) Rappange/Al Rifai/Pieris/Baud (NLD/ARE/LKA/FRA), Dinamic GT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #54, 2m 21.439s
57th (13th bronze) Schuring/Au/Hartog/Rump (NLD/HKG/NLD/EST), Rutronik Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #97, 2m 22.148s
58th (14th bronze) Bohn/A. Renauer/R. Renauer/Jefferies (DEU/DEU/DEU/ZWE), Herberth Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #91, 2m 22.176s
61st (1st Pro-Am) Abramczyk/Detry/Duffieux/Yuan (FRA/BEL/BEL/CHN), AV Racing by Car Collection Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #29, 2m 22.588s