Eliseo Donno bagged his maiden Fanatec GT Europe pole in this morning's Sprint Cup qualifying at Hockenheim, posting a 1m37.349s aboard the #71 AF Corse Ferrari to comfortably secure top spot.
The Silver Cup entrant hit the front with a few minutes remaining in the 10-minute session and could not be toppled by the leading Pro cars, with one-lap specialist Ben Green (#14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari) a full 0.274s shy of the young Italian.
Lucas Auer qualified third abaord the #48 Winward Racing Team Mann-Filter Mercedes-AMG, 0.302s of Donno's benchmark. The German squad enters its home event second in the Sprint Cup championship and is well placed to make up ground this afternoon.
Fourth overall went to the #6 Liqui-Moly Team Engstler by OneGroup Lamborghini of Max Hofer, who earned Gold Cup pole in the process. The squad has switched from Audi to Lamborghini machinery this weekend and has made an immediate impression with the Italian car.
Louis Prette was fifth overall to earn Bronze Cup pole in the #188 Garage 59 McLaren. With Gilles Magnus taking P6 in the #25 Saintéloc Racing Audi – which placed second in the Gold Cup – only two of the overall top six in this session were Pro cars.
Indeed, alongside Donno's breakout performance the most notable Saturday morning stories were of front-runners struggling for speed. Perhaps most significantly, Charles Weerts was only 19th in the #32 Team WRT BMW, which leads the Sprint Cup championship ahead of this afternoon's race.
Further back, the #7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin was 25th; the #96 Rutronik Racing Porsche, which looked rapid on Friday, qualified 26th; and the reigning champion and last year's Hockenhiem winner, the #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi, was 27th.
Donno will share his #71 AF Corse Ferrari with fellow young gun Tom Fleming in this afternoon's 60-minute contest. They will look to become only the sixth Silver Cup crew to secure an overall win from well over 100 Sprint races staged since 2013.
Race 1 will get underway at 14:15 CEST this afternoon, with live coverage available on the GT World YouTube channel. The same schedule is repeated on Sunday, with Qualifying 2 at 09:50 and Race 2 at 14:15.
> RESULT: Qualifying 1, Hockenheim 2024
