Aston Martin factory driver Stefan Mucke claimed pole position for the Spa 24 Hours.
Mucke headed the times in Friday’s super pole session for the top 20 cars from Thursday qualifying at the wheel of the factory-run Beachdean AMR Aston Martin V12 Vantage.
His time of 2m20.675s put the German three tenths ahead of SMP Racing Ferrari 458 Italia driver Alessandro Pierguidi in second and Maximillian Gotz in the HTP Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.
Mucke shares the Beachdean entry with car owner Andrew Howard and Aston junior drivers Jonny Adam and Daniel McKenzie.
“It was a good lap,” he said. “We were surprised how fast the Aston was in qualifying yesterday when we were P2 and we improved the car a little bit.”
Nicky Catsburg ended up quickest of the BMW Z4s in the best of the Marc VDS entries in fourth place, with Nick Tandy in fifth for the ProSpeed Porsche squad.
Tandy’s 911 GT3-R, which the Brit shares with Marco Holzer and Marco Mapelli, will have to take a one-minute stop-go penalty within the first four laps of the race for undergoing an engine change after the meeting started.
The results remain provisional and a stewards’ investigation is ongoing.
Leading super pole times: Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap 1. Stefan Mucke Beechdean Aston Martin 2m20.675s 2. Alessandro Pierguidi SMP Ferrari 2m20.902s +0.227s 3. Maxi Gotz HTP Mercedes 2m20.917s +0.242s 4. Nicky Catsburg Marc VDS BMW 2m21.100s +0.425s 5. Nick Tandy Prospeed Porsche 2m21.219s +0.544s 6. Toni Vilander AF Ferrari 2m21.249s +0.574s 7. Bertrand Baguette GPR Aston Martin 2m21.293s +0.618s 8. Maxime Martin Marc VDS BMW 2m21.297s +0.622s 9. Marc Lieb Manthey Porsche 2m21.313s +0.638s 10. Alvaro Parente Hexis McLaren 2m21.543s +0.868s
