Max Verstappen, Chris Lulham, and Ben Barnicoat struggled in qualifying for the three-hour GT World Challenge Europe season finale at Portimao, managing only 15th on the grid.
Compounding the result for the No. 3 Verstappen Racing team was the fact that another Mercedes-AMG GT3—the No. 17 GetSpeed entry shared by Ralf Aron, Maximilian Gotz, and Fabian Schiller—qualified on the front row in second place.
The 2 Seas-operated squad’s issues were already evident in Q1, where Ben Barnicoat only managed the 21st-fastest time, sitting 0.679 seconds off the benchmark set by Morris Schuring in the pole-setting No. 2 Boutsen VDS Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) shared with Dorian Boccolacci and Alessio Picariello.
Chris Lulham, who has the most experience among the trio in the Mercedes-AMG GT3, took over for Q2. But even he was relegated to 16th in his group, trailing session leader Dorian Boccolacci by 0.799 seconds.
Max Verstappen could not significantly improve the team’s position in Q3, although his gap of 0.441 seconds to surprise session leader Simon Birch in the No. 71 Selected Car Leasing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo—shared with Frederik Schandorff and Malte Ebdrup—was the smallest of the three sessions.
Verstappen posted the entry’s fastest individual lap with a 1m42.093s, a progression expected as track temperatures dropped continuously towards sunset.
Set-up changes backfire
The Mercedes-AMG GT3 appeared to suffer from three main issues during qualifying. The ride height appeared too low, resulting in heavy sparks even by Mercedes-AMG standards.
Furthermore, the car suffered from bouncing over the bumps and noticeable understeer through the sweeping hairpin turns at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, which frequently snapped into oversteer on corner exit.
Averaging each driver’s fastest lap yielded a combined time of 1m42.624s for the No. 3 entry, which meant 15th overall.
Barnicoat indicated after qualifying that the team had adjusted the set-up following the two Free Practice sessions, when the car showed strong pace despite being difficult to drive, changes that ultimately backfired.
“We felt like we’ve been missing a little bit of speed. We’ve been quite high up the time sheets, but none of us have been super happy,” Barnicoat explained.
“So we tried a couple of things, and obviously it just didn’t quite work out. There was lots of sparking, as everyone saw on TV, and a lot of bouncing in straight lines. I think we just missed the window slightly.”
Despite the setback, the British driver remained optimistic ahead of Saturday evening’s race.
“For me, getting used to the Mercedes has been a bit of a struggle with quite a few differences from the Lexus I’m accustomed to,” Barnicoat said.
“But Max has been strong and Chris has been strong, so I’m sure we’ll be okay tomorrow. We just got it a little bit wrong today.”
“We know what we’re doing, and we know how to make it better. We’re all winners here, including a four-time world champion. We’re going to get down to business tomorrow and try to push our way to the front.”
Boutsen VDS honors Marc van der Straten with pole
Morris Schuring, Dorian Boccolacci, and Alessio Picariello secured an emotional pole position for Boutsen VDS.
The squad, managed by Olivier Laine and Olivia Boutsen, sister of former Formula 1 driver Thierry Boutsen, lost team co-owner Marc van der Straten (the ‘VDS’ in the team name) in July at the age of 78.
After Schuring and Boccolacci set the fastest times in their respective Q1 and Q2 segments, Picariello did enough in Q3 to preserve the advantage by setting the seventh-fastest time in his group.
Their combined average time of 1m42.071s was enough to seal pole position by 0.108 seconds over the No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3.
The No. 80 Lionspeed Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) will start third, driven by Sprint Cup champions Ricardo Feller and Bastian Buus alongside Thomas Preining, followed by the No. 64 HRT Ford Racing Mustang GT3 Evo driven by Maxime Oosten, Fabio Scherer, and Eduardo Coseteng in fourth.
The No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Lilou Wadoux, Arthur Leclerc, and Thomas Costa qualified fifth, alongside the No. 48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Lucas Auer, Luca Stolz, and Maro Engel in sixth.
Having already wrapped up the Endurance Cup title at the Nurburgring, Auer and Engel were confirmed as overall GTWC Europe combined champions following a successful appeal against a previous disqualification from a Sprint Cup race at Misano.
In total, six manufacturers featured in the top 10 positions: three Ferraris, two Mercedes-AMGs, two Porsches, and one entry each from Ford, McLaren, and Aston Martin. A total of 29 cars qualified within one second of the overall benchmark.
BMW experienced a difficult qualifying session across all entries. The No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, and Charles Weerts was the highest-placed representative in 14th.
The No. 98 Rowe Racing BMW of Philipp Eng, Dennis Marschall, and Marco Wittmann lacked overall pace in 35th, while Valentino Rossi had his fastest lap deleted for track limits in Q2, leaving the No. 46 Team WRT entry shared with Max Hesse and Neil Verhagen at the back of the grid.
The three-hour main race is scheduled to start on Saturday at 5:00 PM local time.
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