Mercedes’ Maro Engel secured pole position for the Nurburgring 24 Hours in an enthralling qualifying shootout session on Friday evening.
Engel, who is spearheading the Black Falcon Mercedes outfit’s assault on the Nordschleife, topped the session with a 8m10.910s on his second flying lap and was marginally quicker than Maximilian Gotz – who sealed an all-Mercedes front row in the #48 AM6 GT3.
Laurens Vanthoor, who scored pole last year, sat on provisional pole when he set an 8m11.567s lap on his first run, but he failed to improve on his second lap and ended up in third in the #911 Porsche.
Vanthoor was six tenths quicker than the #4 Phoenix Audi of Belgian compatriot Frederic Vervisch, who is also competing in the World Touring Car Cup this weekend.
Mathieu Jaminet took fifth in the #31 Frikadelli Porsche by outpacing the Mercedes of Yelmer Buurman, while defending winner Fred Makowiecki ended up seventh in the #1 Porsche.
Makowiecki was impeded by a slow zone because of an incident on track on his first run, and set a best time of 8m13.588s on his final run.
Luca Stolz drew the first starting position for Friday’s session but almost spun his Mercedes AMG GT3 on his first flying lap.
He recovered to set an 8m13.633s lap that placed the #3 car eighth.
Jan Seyffarth ended up in ninth in the #16 GetSpeed Mercedes, while Simon Trummer rounded out the top 10 in the quickest of the Ferrari 488 GT3s.