Emil Frey Racing will start this afternoon's opening race at Zandvoort from pole position with its #14 Lamborghini after leading a qualifying session dominated by Silver Cup cars.
Ricardo Feller put the Swiss squad on top with a 1m33.586s during the final moments following a red flag period. The youngster found a clear lap on a busy track and produced a sizeable gap to the remainder of the field.
This was not Feller's first career pole: he put the same car on top during last year's Sprint Cup finale at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. But for second-place qualifier and GT newcomer Ulysse de Puaw (CMR Bentley) today marked a breakthrough performance. The young Belgian was half a second shy of Feller, but beat 25 other drivers to book a spot on the front row of the grid.
CMR knows its way around Zandvoort and finished as overall runner-up last season; a repeat performance this weekend could well be on the cards.
Third went to Juuso Puhakka (#7 Toksport WRT Mercedes-AMG) who also impressed against strong opposition. He will share the second row with Norbert Siedler (#163 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini), who was the best Pro car in fourth. Jim Pla (#87 AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG) qualified fifth but could well have challenged Feller for pole, only to slither off the track during his final quick lap.
Nelson Panciatici completed a good session for CMR by taking sixth in the #108 Bentley, followed by Timur Boguslavskiy (#88 AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG) and Frank Bird (#31 Team WRT Audi), who was the best Audi runner in eighth. In a tricky session for the Belgian squad, Bird's teammate Charles Weerts could only qualify 15th in the championship-leading #32 machine.
Another Team WRT man caused the red flag period: Benji Goethe slid into the gravel and made contact with the wall, though the damage to his #30 Audi was not serious. A tight schedule meant the clock kept ticking, resulting in a late dash for grid positions. Miguel Ramos (#77 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini) got the best of the Pro-Am class, edging Louis Machiels (#52 AF Corse Ferrari) by 0.038s. Full session times can be viewed here.
Today's opening race gets going at 13:30 CEST and will see poleman Feller share with fellow countryman Alex Fontana. Follow the action live across the GT World Challenge Europe social media platforms, including the GT World YouTube channel.