Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter will start the season-opening GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS race from pole position after dominating this afternoon's qualifying session at Circuit Paul Ricard.
The Texan squad picked up where it left off at the 2024 finale in Jeddah by cruising to top spot at the French track. Lucas Auer, Matteo Cairoli and Maro Engel led a Mercedes-AMG one-two with the #17 GetSpeed entry booking second on the grid, 0.123s shy of the #48 AMG GT3.
Auer topped Q1 with a 1m53.646s, a result that very much set the tone for what was to follow. Cairoli was even faster in Q2, topping his qualifying segment with a 1m53.940s. This created a comfortable buffer for the #48 crew, which allowed Engel a rare off day. The German was only 12th quickest in his session, but this was still enough to confirm pole position.
The #17 GetSpeed was third quickest in Q1, sixth in Q2 and fourth in Q3. It was just enough to pip the #63 Grasser Racing Lamborghini to second spot, with the #59 Garage 59 McLaren placing fourth. Joseph Loake was impressive on his GT3 debut aboard the McLaren, taking fifth in Q1 to help his team qualify on the second row.
A pair of Porsches will share row three when the race gets underway later today. French squad Schumacher CLRT was the better of the two, edging the #96 Rutronik Racing entry by just 0.015s. CLRT driver Klaus Bachler was quickest of anyone in Q3 with a 1m53.091s, which proved to be the fastest lap of the entire qualifying process.
The top four Gold Cup cars all qualified between eighth and 12th overall. The battle for class pole was won by the #58 Garage 59 crew of Adam Smalley, Dean MacDonald and Louis Prette, who led a McLaren one-two-three ahead of the #111 CSA Racing and #23 Team RJN entries. Verstappen.com Racing was fourth in class and 12th overall with its Aston Martin.
Garage 59 also won Bronze Cup pole with its #188 McLaren. Miguel Ramos, Guilherme Oliveira and Thomas Fleming combined to secure 16th on the grid, the latter taking an impressive P3 overall in the final qualifying segment. Kessel Racing was second with its Ferrari (P21 overall) while the #81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG secured third (P32 overall).
The Silver Cup was led by the #60 VSR Lamborghini. The crew of Michele Beretta, Alessio Deledda and Finlay Hutchison didn't top a session, but all three were consistently quick enough to bag pole. It promises to be a highly competitive race, with 17 cars entered in this class.
All 59 runners were able to complete all three qualifying segments, with less then one second covering the top 25 on average times. They will go racing at 18:00 CEST, with six hours of action in store at Circuit Paul Ricard. Live coverage will be broadcast on the GT World YouTube channel.