Christian Mansell and Maxi Götz will be in pole position of the GT Open 500 tomorrow, at the wheel of the Team Motopark Mercedes AMG. This time the calculations for establishing the pole for the first endurance race of the season were easy, as the Australian posted the fastest lap time in the Driver 1 session and the German did the same in the Driver 2 session. Their average lap time was 2.15.023.
Needless to say, there were many happy faces in the Motopark box. “The car was simply amazing, so nice, almost effortless to drive, and so effective in all the corners; a massive thanks to the team”, said Mansell, while Götz added: “We gambled on some rain in the afternoon session, but it didn’t come and had to correct a few things. My lap wasn’t perfect, but eventually the result was there and it’s nice to be on pole at Spa for this special race.”
The fight for the pole was intense in the closing laps of the closing session, as the Villorba Corse Lamborghini of Leonardo Moncini-Rodrigo Testa was also in contention, after being a provisional leader, but the duel was cut short by a red flag, caused by the GoodSpeed of Wira going off-track and getting blocked in the sand. Eventually, the gap between the Mercedes and the Lambo was 0.699.
In second row will be the Elite Motorsport Ferrari of Tom Emson and Tom Lebbon (+1s205) and the ZRS Motorsport Porsche of Pietro Armanni-Norbert Siedler (+1s264), while in third will be the Greystone GT McLarens of Zak Meakin-Dean Macdonald (+1s313) and Jayden Kelly-McKenzie Cresswell (+1s313). This means there are five different car brands represented in the top six.
Top car in Pro-Am was the CBRX by SPS Mercedes of Dexter Müller-Yannick Mettler, tenth overall, and first in Am was the 2Seas Motorsport Mercedes of Scott Noble-Jason Hart.
For the record, the best lap time of the day (2.14.708) was the one posted by Mansell in session 1, where he preceded Mosca, Macdonald, Cresswell and Testa. In the other session, Götz stopped the clock in 2.15.337 ahead of two other Mercedes, the ones of Mettler and Baumann, the Lambo of Moncini and the Audi of Pla.
