Maro Engel bounced back from disappointment in last night's opening Sprint Cup race at Magny-Cours to put his Mercedes-AMG Team Toksport car on pole for this afternoon's contest.
The German ace was running fourth last night when a loose wheel ended his pursuit of a podium, but will have the opportunity to make amends today from the front of the pack.
Engel beat Albert Costa (#163 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini) to top spot with a lap of 1m35.627s, which ranks as the fastest of the entire weekend. Costa was 0.253s shy of top spot and edged Ben Barnicoat (JOTA McLaren) by just 0.014s. Last night's winner Dries Vanthoor took fourth in the #32 Team WRT Audi.
Alex Fontana continued Emil Frey Racing's dominance of the Silver Cup by qualifying fifth overall and capturing class pole. He will share row three with Raffaele Marciello (#88 AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG), while Pierre-Alexandre Jean starts second among the Silver runners and seventh overall in the #107 CMR Bentley.
Jonny Adam took an emphatic Pro-Am pole in the #188 Garage 59 Aston Martin. The Scottish ace qualified 12th overall, eight places clear of his nearest class rival Dominik Baumann (#20 SPS automotive performance Mercedes-AMG).
The red flag was shown with just a few seconds remaining in the session after Stéphane Richelmi spun the #108 CMR Bentley exiting the final corner. The Monegasque was left facing traffic on the start-finish straight, but managed to avoid contact.
This afternoon's race will get underway at 14:40 CEST. All of the action will be streamed live on the GT World Challenge website and social media channels, including GT World YouTube broadcasts with English and French commentary.