Garage 59 takes LMGT3 pole for 6 Hours of Barcelona

Garage 59's No. 10 McLaren GT3 Evo will start from pole position in LMGT3 for tomorrow's 6 Hours of Barcelona.

British rising star Tom Fleming set the car's best lap, a 1:40.933, and was the only driver to dip under 1m41s in Hyperpole, dethroning The Bend Manthey's Riccardo Pera from the top spot and scoring the McLaren partner team its second pole of the season.

"Credit to the team, constantly performing and producing a good package," Fleming, who has been hopping between the WEC meeting in Spain and the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup finale in Portugal this weekend, said.

"I was missing for the first practice sessions; it was a lot for me to absorb coming from a different part of the world, but Marvin, Antares and the team did an amazing job setting up the car for me. It made the transition easy."

Antares Au, who set up the pole run, added: "We've had a tough couple of races recently; to see that our collective effort come together in qualifying is a real reward today, but the work's not done."

Pera's time was a 1m41.055s in the No. 92 Porsche, good enough for a front-row spot in the class, and three tenths up on FP3 pace setter Simon Mann, who put the No. 21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari third on the grid.

Championship leader Jonny Edgar also impressed in Hyperpole, putting the No. 33 TF Sport Corvette fourth, setting himself and the team up with a strong chance of clinching the Drivers' and Teams' titles tomorrow.

The other Corvette in the field, which runs under the Racing Team Turkey banner, also made the cut and will start 10th, after Peter Dempsey topped the first stage of Qualifying by half a second.

Further down the order, the faster of the two Mercedes-AMGs from Iron Lynx finished the session fifth. The No. 32 Team WRT BMW, which won in Japan, will start sixth.

Qualifying was tough for Aston Martin, as neither Vantage LMGT3 made it into Hyperpole. Ian James from the No. 27 crew, who sit second in the teams' standings and carry significant success ballast, will start dead last with a time seconds off the cut-off.

The No. 23 sister car didn't fare much better, slotting in 14th with a lap 1.4 seconds off the Team Turkey Corvette.

Qualifying resumes with the Hypercar sessions starting this afternoon at 15:40 local time after Free Practice 3 for the top class.

RESULTS