Buus takes Barcelona pole for the Sprint Cup finale, Juncadella starts 21st
Two Bronze Cup Mercedes line up behind the Lionspeed Porsche, Neubauer starts eleventh and the defending champions 28th
Bastian Buus will start the first race of the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup finale from pole position. The Dane set a 1:39.542 in the Lionspeed GP Porsche he shares with Ricardo Feller, the fastest lap of Combined Qualifying 1 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, and the two championship leaders now line up ahead of every one of their title rivals.
The margin was small. Kiern Jewiss was only 0.085 seconds slower in the 2Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG, and Fabian Schiller put the GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG third, 0.255 seconds off pole. Both cars run in the Bronze Cup, which means two Pro cars that need points will have to find their way past them this afternoon.
Eighty-five thousandths over two groups
Qualifying 1 was split in two ten-minute groups. The Pro and Gold Cup cars ran first, the Silver and Bronze Cup cars second, and the combined times decide the grid for Race 1. Buus set his time in the first group. In the second, Jewiss came closest to beating it, ahead of Schiller, Felix Hirsiger in the AF Corse Ferrari (fastest Silver Cup car, fourth overall) and Marvin Dienst in the Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG.
Sven Müller was sixth in the Boutsen VDS Porsche and the second Pro car on the grid, 0.575 seconds behind Buus. Thierry Vermeulen, who won Race 2 at Zandvoort with Ben Green, starts ninth in the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari.
Neubauer eleventh, Juncadella twenty-first
Buus and Feller arrived in Barcelona with 59 points, 5.5 ahead of Arthur Leclerc and Thomas Neubauer and six ahead of Dani Juncadella, according to the official Sprint Cup standings. Qualifying did not help the chasers. Neubauer was 0.742 seconds slower than Buus and starts eleventh in the AF Corse Ferrari.
Juncadella had a harder morning. His 1:40.626 in the Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing car, which he shares with Chris Lulham this weekend, was good for only 21st on a grid where 22 cars were covered by less than 1.1 seconds. The defending champions, Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde, start 28th in the Team WRT BMW, 1.380 seconds off pole. Lucas Auer and Maro Engel, fifth in the standings, start 20th, and Valentino Rossi qualified the second Team WRT BMW 39th.
The fastest car in each qualifying session also earns a championship point for both drivers, so the Lionspeed crew starts Race 1 with a slightly bigger cushion than it had on Friday.
The Gold Cup leaders stay close to their only rival
Tommaso Mosca and Matias Zagazeta lead the Gold Cup by 20.5 points, and Mosca qualified 15th overall, one place behind the fastest Gold car of Dylan Pereira in the Tresor Attempto Audi. Their closest challengers, Thomas Fleming and Louis Prette, start 31st in the Garage 59 McLaren.
In the Bronze Cup, Eddie Cheever qualified the Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing Porsche he shares with Peter Dempsey 23rd. Their main rivals, Rinat Salikhov and Marvin Dienst, start fifth, which gives the Winward car a head start of eighteen places in the class fight. The Silver Cup title was already decided before Barcelona: Ignacio Montenegro and Matisse Lismont, champions in the Team WRT BMW, start 25th.
One car will not take the grid at all. The stewards ordered the GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG number 6 to start Race 1 from the pit lane after an engine change that kept it out of the second free practice session on Friday.
Combined Qualifying 1, top ten
| Pos | Car | Drivers | Team | Class | Time | Gap to pole |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 80 | Bastian Buus / Ricardo Feller | Lionspeed GP | Pro | 1:39.542 | |
| 2 | 222 | Kiern Jewiss / Charles Dawson | 2Seas Motorsport | Bronze | 1:39.627 | +0.085 |
| 3 | 12 | Fabian Schiller / Gabriel Rindone | GetSpeed | Bronze | 1:39.797 | +0.255 |
| 4 | 71 | Felix Hirsiger / Carl Bennett | AF Corse | Silver | 1:39.953 | +0.411 |
| 5 | 87 | Marvin Dienst / Rinat Salikhov | Winward Racing | Bronze | 1:40.007 | +0.465 |
| 6 | 2 | Sven Müller / Dorian Boccolacci | Boutsen VDS | Pro | 1:40.117 | +0.575 |
| 7 | 74 | Dennis Marschall / C. Dressler | Kessel Racing | Bronze | 1:40.135 | +0.593 |
| 8 | 991 | Augusto Farfus / D. Leung | Paradine Competition | Bronze | 1:40.253 | +0.711 |
| 9 | 69 | Thierry Vermeulen / Ben Green | Emil Frey Racing | Pro | 1:40.258 | +0.716 |
| 10 | 27 | David Fumanelli / Marco Pulcini | Kessel Racing | Bronze | 1:40.267 | +0.725 |
Source: SRO, Combined Qualifying 1 provisional classification. Gap column is the gap to pole.
Our read
Pole matters more than usual here. Barcelona’s long main straight gives a car in the pack a chance at Turn 1, but after that the Catalunya layout rewards the car that controls the pace, and Buus will have four Bronze and Silver Cup cars between himself and the nearest Pro rival. Neubauer has to pass ten cars to reach a podium, Juncadella twenty. Unless the first stint brings a Safety Car, the title could be decided before Sunday’s qualifying.
Can Neubauer and Leclerc still turn this around from eleventh, or does Lionspeed take the title in Barcelona? Tell us in the comments.
Race 1 starts at 14:00
The first 60-minute race starts at 14:00 local time. Qualifying 2 follows on Sunday at 11:15, with the second race at 16:00.
Read more: Buus and Feller set the pace in Friday practice, eight crews can still take the Sprint Cup and the full Barcelona entry list.
