Luca Stolz has claimed pole position for GRT Grasser Racing Team at the final round of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, but bad weather significantly impacted on qualifying.
With fog covering the Nurburgring, and wet weather making the track rather greasy, series officials decided to cancel Q1 and Q2 in the hope that the fog would lift and hope that some qualifying could be done albeit in a much shortened form.
Thankfully for all, conditions had improved enough for Q3 to get underway but with a lack of running on a greasy circuit, there were a number of cars making their home in the gravel. The first of these was Andy Soucek in the Bentley Team M-Sport Continental who ran on at turn one and brought out the red flag as that car had to be dragged out of the gravel.
When the track went green again there was only 11 minutes on the clock and with 53 cars on track, times were coming in so quickly the timing screens could barely keep up but just before another red flag – to recover the Ferrari of Olivier Beretta – Luca Stolz put his Lamborghini Huracan GT3 on pole position helped by the fact that a number of drivers had their fast laps blunted by the red flag coming out.
After the session Stolz said: “The team did a very good job in sending me out at the right moment, just when there was a gap in the traffic. Yesterday, Mirko had shown that the car has a lot of potential here, and I am happy that I was able to confirm that.”
In Pro-Am Cup, Jonny Adam kept the pace that saw him retain his British GT Championship title last weekend at Donington Park to finish first in class and fifth overall. He said: “Last year this race gave us the best qualifying and race results of the season, so the Nürburgring seems to suit us. We made a few changes to adapt to the conditions. It was quite a nice session.”