Edoardo Mortara, twice F3 and three times GT winner at Macau has claimed pole position from his Mercedes-Benz team mate Daniel Juncadella, winner of the 2011 Macau F3 Grand Prix.
It was Mortara’s second successive pole at Macau, last year in an Audi.
Maro Engel, winner of the inaugural FIA GT World Cup, rounded out the top three in a Mercedes-Benz rout of qualifying with his team mate Raffaele Marciello in fourth.
All four drivers slammed beneath the 2m18s barrier with Mortara fastest on 2m17.565s, 0.282s clear of Juncadella.
Engel’s time of 2m17.946s was just 0.052s ahead of his team mate.
The first non-AMG car, Nico Muller (Audi Sport Team WRT R8) was fifth only 0.008s behind, from Augusto Farfus (Schnitzer BMW M6), sixth.
The 30-minute qualifying session, held in failing light, was a tribute to the professionalism of the experienced field.
Not one red flag was employed and when Macau rookie Robin Frijns (Audi R8LMS) hit the wall while fastest in the opening stages, he was able to limp back to the pits.
Frijns had been fastest in an early free practice and he was highly favoured to take a debutant pole.
Frijns team repaired the car in time to send him out for two flying laps at the end of the session but a last lap crash by defending champion Laurens Vanthoor restricted him to seventeenth position in the quality field.
Little more than a second separates the top 10 including Vanthoor, the first of the Porsche entrants in ninth position.
Double Macau F3 winner Felix Rosenqvist (Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488GT3) had been strong in early practice but a wrong decision on car set up restricted him to eleventh ,1.3s off pole.
FIA GT Commissioner Christian Schacht has claimed the field to be the best quality ever gathered at Macau.
“Their professionalism was evidenced in the way they respected each other in a flat out qualifying session, never blocking a car on a fast lap,” Schacht said.
Click here to download the provisional classification.
FIA GT Cup competitors face a 12-lap qualifying race before the 18 lap Cup.
