PORTIMÃO QUALIFYING RESULTS
Boutsen VDS secured its first-ever Endurance Cup pole in Friday evening's qualifying session at Portimão. The final ROWE Pole Position Award of the 2026 season was a fitting outcome for the Belgian squad, which topped Q1 and Q2 thanks to Morris Schuring and Dorian Boccolacci respectively.
The times improved across the sessions, with Schuring posting a 1m42.445s and Boccolacci circulating in 1m41.856s. This put the Boutsen VDS squad in a commanding position, and Alessio Picarellio was able to finish the job by placing P7 in the deciding Q3.
The result has been a long time coming for Boutsen VDS, which made its series debut at Monza in 2012. This was also Porsche's first Endurance Cup pole in a little over two years, as well as the first for all three drivers. What's more, it came a little over three months after the passing of the team's legendary patron Marc "VDS" van der Straten.
The #17 Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed crew of Ralf Aron, Maximilian Götz and Fabian Schiller qualified second, preventing a Porsche one-two by jumping ahead of the #80 Lionspeed GP entry in Q3.
HRT Ford Racing was fourth on a strong day for the German outfit, followed by the #50 AF Corse Ferrari. The #48 Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter squad – which secured the Endurance Cup drivers' title last time out at the Nürburgring – completed the top six.
In a further development Winward Racing, which operates the #48 Mercedes-AMG, has also wrapped up the Endurance Cup teams' title. This is because Comtoyou Racing did not secure pole and the accompanying bonus point, which was essential to keep its faint hopes alive.
Selected Car Racing will start from Gold Cup pole position thanks to an excellent showing from its #71 Ferrari. Frederik Schandorff, Malte Ebdrup and Simon Birch were at the controls, the latter setting a 1m41.652s, which was the fastest time of Q3. Indeed, this would prove to be the best lap of the entire qualifying session.
Silver Cup pole went to the #65 HRT Ford Racing crew of Eduardo Coseteng, Maxime Oosten and Nicolas Baert. This was the team's second class pole of 2026 after Monza and will see the Mustang start from P13 overall. It will roll off alongside the #32 Team WRT BMW and directly ahead of the #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen entry.
Paradine Competition took Bronze Cup pole thanks to its #991 BMW crew of Darren Leung, James Kellett and Robert de Haan. This was the team's first pole of the 2026 Endurance campaign and boosts its chances of overhauling Kessel Racing in the drivers' title fight.
The final race of the 2026 GT World Challenge powered by AWS season gets underway at 17:00 local time (GMT+1) on Saturday evening, concluding at 20:00. Live coverage will air for free and in multiple languages on the GT World YouTube channel.