Kirchhoefer Storms to 24H Spa Pole in Garage 59 McLaren

Photo: JEP/SRO

Garage 59 took pole position for the 78th running of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa as Marvin Kirchhoefer beat Jules Gounon and Dries Vanthoor to come out on top in the Superpole shootout.

The No. 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, which was also quickest in the full-grid qualifying session on Thursday evening, put in a time of 2:15.113 to beat the No. 17 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Jules Gounon by 0.404 seconds.

Dries Vanthoor took third in the No. 31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO, although the Belgian is currently under investigation for Superpole procedures.

Kirchhoefer took McLaren’s first 24H pole position in a Superpole session that was interrupted due to a crash for the No. 34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Henrique Chaves.

The Portuguese driver was on his second flying lap when he lost control of the car exiting Fagnes, suffering a significant impact with the barriers and bringing out a red flag.

Chaves walked away from the crash unaided.

By the time of the red flag, Maxime Martin had laid down an early benchmark in the No. 9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG, with the Belgian’s 2:15.792 looking unbeatable for the majority of Superpole runners.

Towards the end of the shootout, Vanthoor was the first to go faster by posting a 2:15.713, only for that time to be almost immediately bested by Gounon’s 2:15.527.

Kirchhoefer subsequently jumped ahead of both, setting his fastest time on his first lap and securing McLaren’s first pole position for the 24H Spa.

Martin ended the session in fourth ahead of the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Alessio Rovera and the No. 48 Mercedes-AMG of Lucas Auer.

Franck Perera, last year’s polesitter, took seventh in the No. 163 Vincenzo Sospiri Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, while Mattia Drudi, Joel Sturm and Antonio Fuoco completed the top ten.

Laurin Heinrich qualified 11th aboard the No. 22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche, initially appearing contention on his first flying lap before a mistake at the final chicane caused him to drop a second and a half.

He subsequently improved on his second attempt, but was not quick enough to break into the top ten.

He managed to remain ahead of Jordan Pepper’s No. 63 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini as well as the No. 33 Verstappen dot Com Racing Aston Martin driven by Harry King.

Raffaele Marciello and Patric Niederhauser slotted into 14th and 15th for ROWE Racing and Rutronik Racing, respectively, followed by the No. 32 Team WRT BMW of Kelvin van der Linde.

Mathieu Jaminet, Valentino Rossi and Philipp Eng were the final drivers to put in a time, as Chaves had his only flying lap deleted for causing the red flag.

Friday’s on-track running will conclude with a 30-minute warmup session scheduled for 8:05 p.m. CEST (2:05 p.m. EST).

Source: Sports Car 365