Portimao Superstars: Luigi Ferrara grabs surprise pole position

Ferrara could not have left his run any later, the Roma Racing Mercedes driver setting his best time of 1m52.159s with just seconds remaining in the session.

The time, the fastest of anyone so far this weekend, was enough to knock Gianni Morbidelli (Audi Sport Italia RS5) out of the top spot.

Morbidelli, who set his fastest time on his very first lap of the session, had been on top for almost half an hour. However, he was forced to settle for second.

Liuzzi (Romeo Ferraris Mercedes) was third, a somewhat surprising result given that he was more than a second clear of the field in free practice two. Rather than cruising to pole, as was expected, he narrowly failed to match his FP2 time, and ended up almost half a second behind Ferrara.

Liuzzi's team-mate Thomas Biagi was fourth, ahead of Max Mugelli, who was the best of the BMWs for Team Dinamic.

Fabrizio Giovanardi was sixth, while Giovanni Berton and Francesco Sini locked out the fourth row.

Mauro Trentin made it three Dinamic BMWs in the top 10 with ninth, ahead of impressive rookie Jonathan Giacon, who was the best of the new Adria Racing System entries with 10th in the Audi RS4.

Pos  Driver                Team/Car           Time       Gap
 1.  Luigi Ferrara         Roma Mercedes      1m52.159s         
 2.  Gianni Morbidelli     Audi Italia        1m52.389s  +0.230s
 3.  Tonio Liuzzi          Ferraris Mercedes  1m52.588s  +0.429s
 4.  Thomas Biagi          Ferraris Mercedes  1m53.077s  +0.918s
 5.  Max Mugelli           Dinamic BMW        1m53.607s  +1.448s
 6.  Fabrizio Giovanardi   Petri Porsche      1m54.113s  +1.954s
 7.  Giovanni Berton       Dinamic BMW        1m54.180s  +2.021s
 8.  Francesco Sini        Solaris Chevrolet  1m54.401s  +2.242s
 9.  Mauro Trentin         Dinamic BMW        1m54.905s  +2.746s
10.  Jonathan Giacon       Adria Audi         1m55.522s  +3.363s
11.  Christian Montanari   Adria Jaguar       1m56.096s  +3.937s
12.  Andrea Bacci          CAAL Mercedes      1m56.595s  +4.436s
13.  'Diabolik'            Adria Jaguar       1m56.748s  +4.589s
14.  Alessandro Battaglin  Adria Audi         1m57.766s  +5.607s
15.  Gianni Giudici        Giudici BMW        1m57.822s  +5.663s
16.  Marco Fumagalli       Giudici BMW        2m00.071s  +7.912s