With the quickest lap of the weekend, Laurens Vanthoor took pole position for this afternoon’s qualifying race at the Slovakiaring. At the wheel of the #1 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi, the Belgian lapped in 1’58.187, enough to put his car on the front row for the fourth time in four events. Vanthoor’s lap was 0.142 of a second quicker than Jeroen Bleekemolen’s, driving the #28 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini. Bleekemolen’s chances were almost ruined at the beginning of the Q3 session, when the Dutchman had a small excursion through the gravel trap, but Bleekemolen managed to rejoin the track to put his car on the front row. Vanthoor and Bleekemolen now have two pole positions each this season. Markus Winkelhock in the #6 Phoenix Racing Audi ended up in third, albeit almost seven tenths slower than Audi-colleague Vanthoor.
Pole position in the Silver Cup went to the #34 ROAL Motorsport BMW, with David Fumanelli clocking the sixth time overall. He was only 0.044 quicker than Series and Silver Cup newcomer Luca Stolz in the #86 HTP Motorsport Mercedes though. Stolz was the quickest of the drivers making their Blancpain Sprint Series debut at the Slovakiaring, although Fabian Hamprecht (#9 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi) and Nico Verdonck (#84 HTP Motorsport Mercedes) clocked times inside the top-10 in Q1.
No Pro-Am driver made it through to the deciding Q3 session, so it was Marc Basseng’s time in Q1 that gave the #5 Phoenix Racing Audi pole in the Pro-Am Trophy. That same car was one of three Audi involved in a series of offs at turn 6, with first Mateusz Lisowski, Stephane Ortelli (#4 and #9 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi respectively) both taking to the gravel trap, soon followed by Alessandro Latif in the Phoenix Audi.
The Qualifying Race for the fourth round of the Blancpain Sprint Series starts at 14:45 local time.