Black Falcon Mercedes driver Maro Engel secured pole for the Spa 24 Hours after edging out Porsche driver Laurens Vanthoor by just 0.017 seconds in Friday’s superpole session.
As Black Falcon’s #4 Mercedes AMG-GT3 had topped Thursday night’s first qualifying session, Engel was the 20th and final driver to head out and set his two laps.
Vanthoor, driving the #117 Team75 Bernhard Porsche 911 GT3-R, had set the time to beat at 2m18.605s, which Engel missed by just 0.055s on his first lap.
But on his second lap the former DTM and Formula E racer nailed a 2m18.588s to grab pole.
Ferrari made it three different marques in the top three courtesy of Davide Rigon’s 2m18.806s effort in the #72 SMP Racing 488 GT3, which had been the time to beat until it was bested by Vanthoor.
Nick Tandy put the best of the ROWE Racing Porsches fourth, another 0.016s further back, and was followed by the HubAuto Corsa Ferrari driven by Daniel Serra.
The #2 Team WRT entry of Dries Vanthoor was the best of the Audis in sixth ahead of Nico Muller in the sister #1 R8 LMS, and the Silver Cup-entered Attempto Racing car being driven by Mattia Drudi.
Another Mercedes, the GruppeM car of Maxi Buhk, ROWE Racing’s Mathieu Jaminet and WEC 2018/19 GTE Pro champion Kevin Estre (GPX Racing), who as the first driver to run, rounded out the top 10.
Aston Martin’s pair of R-Motorsport Vantage GT3s ended up 12th and 13th in the hands of Maxime Martin and Jake Dennis, while the sole cars from Lamborghini and Nissan, finished 19th and 20th after both were penalised.
The FFF Racing Lamborghini Huracan of Dennis Lind and the KCMG Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 being driven by Katsumasa Chiyo fell foul of the rules dictating the time at which cars must leave the pits during the superpole session.