Rene Rast claimed pole position with the fastest time in qualifying for the FIA GT Series round in Slovakia, while the next three quickest cars were all handed penalties.
Rast, who shares his #12 car with Niki Mayr-Melnhof, was 0.239 seconds quicker than Sebastien Loeb Racing McLaren driver Mike Parisy in the superpole session for the top ten crews.
“This is my first time in Slovakia Ring so I needed some time to adjust to the track this morning,” said Rast. “But then we improved the car from session to session and as personally I struggle a bit with the chicane, we worked a lot on that and it seems to work out as we are the fastest car. My lap was very good, no mistakes, and the team did a great job on the car. I did not expect to be that quick so it is great.”
The car of Parisy and Andreas Zuber, the sister machine of Sebastien Loeb and Alvaro Parente that the latter qualified third and the fourth-placed Audi that Laurens Vanthoor shares with Stephane Ortelli were all excluded from the superpole session for not beginning their runs at the correct time. Based upon their times from the first two sessions, Parente/Loeb will now start eighth, Vanthoor/Ortelli ninth and Parisy/Zuber in tenth.
Inheriting second on the grid is local ace Stefan Rosina and his Reiter Lamborghini co-driver Peter Kox. The pair are making their second appearance of the season, having won in Zolder.
Andreas Simonsen set the quickest time of the Pro-Am entries, with the HTP Gravity-Charouz Mercedes he shares with Sergey Afanasiev now moving up to third overall on the grid.
Fourth will be the BMW Team Brasil car of Allam Khodair and Caca Bueno, ahead of the Grasser Lamborghini of Dominik Baumann and Hari Proczyk, the Pro Mercedes entry of Maximilian Buhk and Alon Day and the second Reiter Lamborghini driven by Germans Marc Basseng and Albert von Thurn und Taxis.
