In the GTE session, which was interrupted by a red flag for an incident at Raidillon, Ahmad Al Harthy scored his first WEC pole in the ORT by TF Sport Aston Martin.
The Omani driver set a rapid 2m17.216s at the end of the session to go almost two seconds clear of the other Bronze drivers taking part.
The pole time was a big improvement on the 2m18.127s he set before the red flag, which was good enough for provisional pole at the time.

Sarah Bovy in the Iron Dames Porsche came closest to the Aston, with a late effort after the red flag to put herself and the Italian team on the front row. Her best lap was a 2m19.150s.
Ryan Hardwick completed the top three in the session in the No. 88 Proton Porsche.
He briefly sat second after his 2m19.481s, but Bovy’s lap, completed moments later, proved to be 0.3s quicker.

The championship-leading Corvette Racing C8.R, which is aiming for a third-straight win to start the season, ended up fourth.
Ben Keating, in a C8.R BoP forced to carry two sets of ballast for this event, still managed to set a 2m19.506s. It will give him and the team confidence that it can bank plenty more points and solidify the team’s position at the top of the points standings ahead of Le Mans in the race tomorrow.

“I think the red flag benefited us,” said Keating. “P4 is a perfect result for carrying 45 extra kilos on this particular track.

Even without those, I don’t know if I was able to keep up with (pole-winner Ahmad) Al Harthy in the Aston Martin.
The Aston is really strong around here. Last year I qualified a second-and-a-half ahead of the field in the Aston around here.
But they’ve got a bunch more power and we’ve got a bunch more weight.”

The fastest of the Ferraris, the No. 83 Richard Mille AF Corse, will start fifth ahead of the Northwest AMR Aston Martin that is here with its new-look crew. Ian James set a very respectable 2m19.976s ahead of the Heart of Racing driver trio’s maiden WEC outing tomorrow.