Spa 24: HTP Mercedes leads first qualifying session

The majority of the quick times came in the early part of the 75-minute session, Gotz setting the benchmark time of 2m18.532s on his fourth lap.

The time wound up being good enough to stand for the last 40 minutes of the session, earning Gotz and team-mates Thomas Jager and Gary Paffett on provisional pole ahead of the night qualifying session.

Dani Juncadella made it a Mercedes 1-2 in the #56 Black Falcon entry, falling three quarters of a tenth short of Gotz’s time in the AMG GT3 that he’ll share with Oliver Morley, Miguel Toril, and Abdelaziz Al Faisal.

Laurens Vanthoor was right in the mix too, and the best non-Mercedes, finishing up just over a tenth from P1 in the #28 WRT Audi.

Behind the Belgian there was another couple of Mercedes, the #88 Team AKKA ASP car of Tristan Vautier, Felix Rosenqvist, and Renger van der Zande leading Maro Engel in the #00 Black Falcon entry.

There was a trio of Audi’s next, the #26 Sainteloc car ahead of Henry Hassid in the ISR entry. Robin Frijns, meanwhile, was one of the few of the frontrunners to improve late in the session, jumping from 20th to 8th with just under 10 minutes to go.

The best-placed Bentley was ninth, Tom Onslow-Cole setting the time in the Team Parker car, while Alex Sims rounded out the Top 10 in the Rowe BMW.