Spa 24 Hours: Marc VDS BMW leads qualifying with Maxime Martin

The factory BMW driver claimed his spot in the Friday afternoon super pole qualifying session that will determine the first 20 positions on the grid with a lap that put him just 0.009 seconds up on WRT Audi driver Laurens Vanthoor.

Martin posted a time of 2m18.397s aboard his BMW Z4 GT3 during the opening 75-minute session held in daylight on Thursday, which compared with Vanthoor's 2m18.406s in the best of WRT's pair of second-generation Audi R8s.

Martin said: "Almost everyone set their times in the beginning, so it looks like it was the best time to do it.

"This is definitely good for the team, but there is still super pole to go and then a long, long race."

Andrea Piccini ended up third fastest in his Pro-Am class Kessel Racing Ferrari 458 Italia with a 2m18.528s after the AF Corse Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi and the factory Bentley driven by Maxime Soulet lost their times for exceeding track limits.

Nicki Thiim took fourth position in the fastest of the two new Audi R8 LMS racers fielded by the Phoenix team and Stefan Mucke fifth in the AMR-run Leonard Aston Martin V!2 Vantage.

Frank Stippler claimed sixth with a time set during the night qualifying session aboard the second of WRT's new R8s

Soulet made it through to super pole in 16th position with a time set during the night session aboard his M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3, while Pier Guidi just missed out in 22nd place.

Grid positions 21 through 57 are now set for the double-points round of the Blancpain Endurance Series at the weekend.

That means Jean-Philippe Belloc, winner of the 24 Hours at Spa in 2001, has taken pole in the Am Cup class in his Auto Sport Promotion Ferrari.