Qualifying, 24 Hours Spa-Francorchamps 2025 for our Porsche Teams
Four Porsche customer teams qualify for the Superpole session in Spa
Following Thursday evening’s qualifying, it is confirmed: four of the eleven Porsche 911 GT3 R cars have qualified for the Superpole session at the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. This puts them among the 20 race cars battling for the top grid positions on Friday from 16:10 hrs (CEST).
Schumacher CLRT emerged as the best-performing customer team, securing third place in qualifying. The No. 18 entry from Dinamic GT finished eleventh. Rutronik Racing’s No. 96 Porsche claimed 17th, while Herberth Motorsport wrapped up the session in P19 with its No. 92 car. The endurance classic at the Belgian Grand Prix circuit gets underway on Saturday at 16:30 hrs (CEST).
The Qualifying
Seventy-five GT3 cars took part in the four-part qualifying, with each driver completing a lap during one of the four 15-minute sessions. The final grid positions were determined by the average of these times. The opening session proved especially chaotic. As dusk fell and temperatures dipped to around 20°C, a fresh downpour hit the recently dried track. A crash brought out the red flags before any flying laps could be completed. Upon resumption, the session was red-flagged once again within two minutes. On the third attempt, not every driver managed to post lap times before another interruption. Thanks to a five-minute extension, the session was eventually completed. All five Porsche crews that ran in Q1 succeeded in recording valid times, keeping their Superpole hopes alive.
With an average lap time of 2:17.016 minutes, former Porsche Juniors Klaus Bachler (Austria), Ayhancan Güven (Turkey), and Laurin Heinrich (Germany) secured third place in qualifying. The trio competes for the French Porsche customer team, Schumacher CLRT. The No. 18 Dinamic GT car qualified in eleventh place, with three more former Porsche Juniors at the wheel: Dane Bastian Buus and Porsche works drivers Matt Campbell (Australia) and Mathieu Jaminet. Seventeenth place went to Rutronik Racing’s No. 96 entry, driven by Patric Niederhauser from Switzerland, Sven Müller, and Alessio Picariello. The Swede and the Belgian are also graduates of Porsche’s Junior programme. In nineteenth position was the fourth Porsche 911 GT3 R, fielded by Herberth Motorsport. Swiss driver Rolf Ineichen shares the cockpit with Germans Tim Heinemann and Joel Sturm. They are one of only two teams from the Gold Cup category to have reached the Superpole session on Friday.
‟Four 911 GT3 R cars qualifying for the Superpole session is a solid result and gives us a positive outlook for Friday,” emphasised Sebastian Golz, Project Manager 911 GT3 R. ‟Schumacher CLRT delivered a particularly strong performance. Dinamic GT and Rutronik Racing also positioned their Porsche well in the Pro category over three sessions. Herberth Motorsport delivered a real surprise by securing a spot in the top 20 with the number 92 – a very impressive achievement for a Gold Cup competitor.”
Wright Motorsport from the USA qualified on P22 with Pure Rxcing in 23rd, narrowly missing the round of the top 20. Both teams were less than 0.160 seconds away from advancing to the Superpole.
20 GT3 race cars fight for pole position
The decisive battle for the top 20 grid positions begins with the 30-minute Superpole session on Friday afternoon at 16:10 (CEST), run as individual time trials. With 75 cars entered, the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps remains the largest GT3 race in the world. As in previous years, the endurance classic counts towards both the Intercontinental GT Challenge and the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. It is the third round on this season’s calendar, with teams and drivers earning championship points after six, twelve, and 24 hours of racing.
From Pro to Bronze: the class divisions
As the organiser of the GT World Challenge Europe, the SRO Motorsports Group defines five competition classes based on the official FIA driver rankings: Pro, Pro-Am, Gold Cup, Silver Cup, and Bronze Cup. The Silver Cup requires all four drivers to hold FIA Silver status. In the Gold Cup, eligible line-ups consist of one Silver-rated driver and two or three Gold-rated drivers. In the Bronze Cup, the regulations allow a maximum of one Platinum-rated driver, one Silver, and one Bronze. If a fourth driver is added, they may hold up to a Silver status. A unique aspect of the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps is the Pro-Am category, where two drivers must be classified as Bronze, while the remaining two are unrestricted in terms of classification. The Pro class has no driver rating restrictions, which typically results in fully professional line-ups made up of Platinum-rated drivers. However, Pro entries are limited to three drivers per car, meaning they must skip the first of the four qualifying segments.
Live race coverage on stream and app
Fans at home and at the track can follow the full Spa-Francorchamps programme via the official GT World Challenge app, available for both Android and Apple devices via their respective app stores. The website www.intercontinentalgtchallenge.com offers live streaming and live timing.
Driver comments after the qualifying
Laurin Heinrich (Porsche 911 GT3 R #22): ‟Qualifying started later than planned for us due to the red flags, so I ended up driving entirely in the dark. The drying track didn’t make things easier. To make matters even more challenging, I hadn’t driven at all during free practice – my first laps of the event came in qualifying. But as racing drivers, we thrive in challenges like this. Now, I’m very eager to fight for pole position tomorrow in the world’s biggest GT3 race.”
Bastian Buus (Porsche 911 GT3 R #18): ‟We made it into the Superpole, which was the most important thing for today’s session. We had to push quite hard in pre-qualifying in the afternoon and weren’t exactly sure what to expect in qualifying. But we pulled through.” Patric Niederhauser (Porsche 911 GT3 R #96): ‟17th place in the overall standings – we had hoped for a bit more, but securing a place in the Superpole means we’ve met our minimum target. There’s still work to be done, we haven’t quite found our pace yet. Now the focus shifts to tomorrow – first to find some extra performance for the Superpole, then to prepare for the race itself.”
Tim Heinemann (Porsche 911 GT3 R #92): ‟We were biting our nails towards the end there, things got very close for us. That makes us all the more satisfied now with second place in our class and 19th overall. Naturally, we had somehow set ourselves the goal of Superpole. The fact that we qualified for it puts us in a great position.”
Qualifying results
1. (1. Pro) Loake/Kirchhöfer/Goethe (GBR/CHE/DEU), McLaren #59, 2.16,454 minutes 2. (2. Pro) Vanthoor/Van der Linde/Wittmann (BEL/ZAF/DEU), BMW #31, 2.16,959 minutes 3. (3. Pro) Bachler/Güven/Heinrich (AUT/TUR/DEU), Schumacher CLRT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #22, 2.17,016 minutes 11. (11. Pro) Buus/Campbell/Jaminet (DNK/AUS/FRA), Dinamic GT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #18, 2.17,437 minutes 17. (16. Pro) Müller/ Niederhauser/Picariello (DEU/CHE/BEL), Rutronik Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #96, 2.17,795 minutes 19. (2. Gold) Ineichen/Heinemann/Sturm (CHE/DEU/DEU), Herberth Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #92, 2.18,040 minutes 22. (3. Gold) Adelson/Skeer/Sargent (USA/USA/AUS), Wright Motorsports, Porsche 911 GT3 R #120, 2.18,428 minutes 23. (19. Pro) Lietz/Malykhin/Preining (AUT/GBR/AUT), Pure Rxcing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #911, 2.18,443 minutes 45. (8. Bronze) Rindone/Kolb/Feller/Pera (FRA/DEU/CHE/ITA), Lionspeed GP, Porsche 911 GT3 R #80, 2.21,433 minutes 46. (6. Silver) Rappange/Al Rifai/Pieris/Baud (NLD/ARE/LKA/FRA), Dinamic GT, Porsche 911 GT3 R #54, 2.21,439 minutes 57. (13. Bronze) Schuring/Au/Hartog/Rump (NLD/HKG/NLD/EST), Rutronik Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R #97, 2.22,148 minutes 58. (14. Bronze) Bohn/A. Renauer/R. Renauer/Jefferies (DEU/DEU/DEU/ZWE), Herberth Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #91, 2.22,176 minutes 61. (1. Pro-Am) Abramczyk/Detry/Duffieux/Yuan (FRA/BEL/BEL/CHN), AV Racing by Car Collection Motorsport, Porsche 911 GT3 R #29, 2.22,588 minutes
