Patrick Kujala took a commanding pole for this afternoon's Sprint Cup race at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The #72 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini was three tenths clear of the competition, posting a 1m39.091s in the Bronze Cup car he shares with Gabriel Rindone.
While this might be called an unexpected result, it was not entirely surprising. Kujala has shown front-running pace on previous occasions and knows how to extract a lap time from his Lamborghini. Nevertheless, taking overall pole – his first in the series – stands out as a major achievement for the Finn.
Maximilian Götz qualified a season-best second with a 1m39.385s in the #9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG. He was a tenth quicker than title contender Lucas Auer (#48 Winward Racing Team Mann-Filter Mercedes-AMG), who secured a crucial P3 on the grid. The Mercedes-AMG pair will fancy their chances of victory, with Kujala's car required to meet the minimum Bronze Cup pit stop time.
Aurélien Panis (#10 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG)) was fourth overall and a comfortable pole-winner in Silver, bagging a bonus point in the process. He was followed by Sven Müller (#96 Rutronik Racing Porsche), Ricardo Feller (#99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi) and Ben Green (#14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari).
Gold Cup pole went to the #21 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin of David Pittard, who showed impressive pace on Friday and backed up it up in Qualifying. The Briton will start 13th overall, two places ahead of the #111 CSA Racing Audi. The points-leading #6 Liqui-Moly Team Engstler by OneGroup Audi could only manage 29th overall, the slowest of the Gold entrants.
Similarly, this was a disastrous session for Team WRT as it seeks to wrap up the overall and Silver titles. Dries Vanthoor qualified 18th aboard the #32 BMW, while Sean Gelael was last among the Silvers in the sister #30. Both cars have shown a capacity for comebacks this season and will need a repeat performance this afternoon.
The penultimate race of the 2024 Fanatec GT Europe Sprint Cup gets underway at 14:00 CEST. Live coverage will be aired in four languages via the GT World YouTube channel, with the broadcast commencing at 13:30.
> Result: Qualifying 1
