“We have the potential to be in contention for victory,” German driver Maximilian Buhk announced prior to qualifying for the inaugural Hankook 12H ZANDVOORT. Sure enough, the 21-year old German put the No. 1 Hofor Racing Mercedes-Benz (#1, Michael Kroll/Roland Eggimann/Kenneth Heyer/Christiaan Frankenhout/Maximilian Buhk) on pole in qualifying with a fastest time of 1:39.998 minutes. The Swiss team’s sister car with exactly the same driver line-up (#2, Michael Kroll/Roland Eggimann/Kenneth Heyer/Christiaan Frankenhout/Maximilian Buhk) qualified second in the hands of Christiaan Frankenhout with a time of 1:40.386 minutes, followed by the Scuderia Praha Ferrari 458 GT3 (#9, Jiri Pisarik/Jaromir Jirik/Peter Kox), driven to a lap time of 1:41.021 minutes by Peter Kox.
Initially, Hofor Racing’s No. 2 was on provisional pole with a lap time set by Michael Kroll, but then Maximilian Buhk came to the fore with a sequence of fast lap times in the No. 1 machine and emerged as the only driver to set a lap time of under 1:40 minutes. Frankenhout then took over the No. 2 car and improved the fastest lap time of that car, but still remained in second place. German Jörg Viebahn secured pole in the SP2 class with a lap time of 1:44,866 minutes in the Las Moras Racing Team Renault Mégane Trophy (#90, Luc Braams/Jan-Joris Verheul/Jörg Viebahn) while Sandor van Es, who is celebrating his 20th anniversary in motorsport this weekend, put the Nissan Nederland Nissan 370Z (#76, Sandor van Es/Niels Bouwhuis/Max Koebolt) on pole in the SP3 class with a lap time of 1:48.621 minutes.
Jochen Krumbach put the Top-Autoteile Racing BMW E46 WTCC (#30 Marco Schelp/Donald Molenaar/Jochen Krumbach) on pole in the A5 class, followed by the identical Tischner Motorsport entry (#29, Michael Tischner/Ulrich Becker/Yannik Trautwein/Matthias Tischner). The MDM Motorsport BMW 320 D WTCC (#82. Bas van de Ven/Simon Knap/Jeroen den Boer) claimed pole in the A3T class with a time of 1:50.698 minutes, set by Bas van de Ven, while Martin Byford put the Synchro Motorsport Honda Civic (#57, Alyn James/Stephen Ritchie/Martin Byford) on pole in the A2 class with 1:58.533 minutes. The most thrilling battle was fought out in the D1 class, in which the top three cars set lap times all within four tenths of a second. Eventually, Wubbe Herlaar emerged as the fastest driver with the SVDP BMW 120 D (#75, Spencer Vanderpal/Wubbe Herlaar) with 1:57.607 minutes, followed by Johan van Loo in the Recy Racing Team BMW 120D (#72, Jan de Vocht/Johan van Loo/Wim Meulders) and Rik Breukers in the Red Camel-Tech Tics SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI (#73, Rik Breukers/Bart Ogink/Alex de Vries/Rob Quirijnen).
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