Heico Gravity-Charouz Mercedes and Rhino’s Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini shared the spoils after Qualifying at Navarra in round three of the FIA GT3 European Championship.

 

David Mengesdorf (DEU) and Hari Proczyk (AUT) in the No.11 Lamborghini Gallardo LP600 took pole position for Race One while the Heico Gravity-Charouz Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 No.1 of Dominik Baumann (AUT) and Maximilian Buhk (DEU) will start on P1 for Race Two.

 

The pair will start the first race in second position just ahead of team-mates Max Nilsson (SWE) and Mika Vahamaki (FIN) in the No.2 Heico Gravity-Charouz car.

 

Mengesdorf and Proczyk had to overcome a broken rear left shock absorber in Free Practice 2 before Mengesdorf set a time of 1:39.825 in Q1. In Q2, Buhk topped the time sheets with a lap of 1:39.662.

 

“We did not expect to be this competitive today,” said Buhk. “We tried to improve the car the best that we could in Free Practice.

 

“I didn’t expect that we would get to pole or even on the first row, but now we are in good shape for the races tomorrow, starting from pole and second.”

 

Buhk’s team-mate, Baumann, looked forward to tomorrow’s races at the Circuito de Navarra. “For sure, we have a chance of some good racing tomorrow. My target is to save the tyres at times, there is a really hard tarmac here and we need to look out for it, maybe holding position toward the end but we want to race.

 

“For the team it is a perfect session to get these two results where we did not expect to be so competitive.”

 

The Championship leaders, Gaetano Ardagna Perez (VEN) and Giuseppe Ciro (ITA) were down in sixth and seventh positions after failing to the best out of their AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia No.50.

 

Cesar Campanico (PRT), Team Novadriver Audi R8 LMS No.14, admitted his team had experienced some problems with the car set up over the weekend, despite qualifying sixth for Race 2.

 

“We are experiencing some difficulties with the set-up of the car. We think that the problem lays on the different warming up rates between the front and the rear tyres. The car is very tricky and makes our job very hard.

 

“The Audis are experiencing some problems in this circuit, so ending both races in the top-5 would be a good result, as we will start from eighth and sixth.”