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Nurburgring 24h: Glickenhaus grabs shock Nordschleife pole

James Glickenhaus and his SCG003C scored a shock pole position for the 2017 Nurburgring 24 Hours during Friday evening's top-30 shootout, beating works-backed teams from Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche.

#704 Traum Motorsport, SCG SCG003C: Jeff Westphal, Franck Mailleux, Thomas Mutsch, Andreas Simonsen, Felipe Fernandez Laser

#704 Traum Motorsport, SCG SCG003C: Jeff Westphal, Franck Mailleux, Thomas Mutsch, Andreas Simonsen, Felipe Fernandez Laser

Alexander Trienitz

Polesitter #704 Traum Motorsport, SCG SCG003C: Jeff Westphal, Franck Mailleux, Andreas Simonsen
#704 Traum Motorsport, SCG SCG003C: Jeff Westphal, Franck Mailleux, Thomas Mutsch, Andreas Simonsen, Felipe Fernandez Laser
#29 Audi Sport Team Land-Motorsport, Audi R8 LMS: Christopher Mies, Connor De Phillippi, Markus Winkelhock, Kelvin van der Linde
#29 Audi Sport Team Land-Motorsport, Audi R8 LMS: Christopher Mies, Connor De Phillippi, Markus Winkelhock, Kelvin van der Linde
#9 Audi Sport Team WRT, Audi R8 LMS: Nico Müller, Marcel Fässler, Robin Frijns, René Rast
#704 Traum Motorsport, SCG SCG003C: Jeff Westphal, Franck Mailleux, Thomas Mutsch, Andreas Simonsen, Felipe Fernandez Laser

After an average first lap around the infamous Nordschleife, American racer Jeff Westphal took the #704 SCG003C to a lap of 8m15.427s, the biggest surprise of the weekend so far.

"This lap was at the limit," Westphal said. "I had a lot of oversteer in the car. But for us it was about all or nothing today. My first lap was okay already but I had a few corners I knew I could do better." 

This earned team boss James Glickenhaus the "Glickenhaus Trophy", an award Glickenhaus himself had brought about in 2016.

"The Nurburgring 24h is like Woodstock," he said. "It's a festival of motorsports. I'm proud that by achieving this pole position our team is now part of the myth."

Westphal beat Connor de Phillippi in the #29 Land Motorsport Audi R8 LMS only by 0.675 seconds.

Robin Frijns in the #9 WRT Audi rounded off the top three, another tenth down on the surprise polesitter.

"Maybe I should have saved my tyres for a second flying lap," de Phillippi said.

Frijns added: "I didn't want to crash so I brought the car home safely. Our starting position is nice but there's a 24h race ahead of us. And we all know a lot can happen during the race."

The #22 WTM Racing Ferrari 488 GT3, the sole car of its make in the 157-strong field and the pacesetter in Friday's second qualifying session, lines up fourth on the grid in front of the #10 WRT Audi.

Reigning champion Maro Engel and the best-placed Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Black Falcon will start from seventh, with Sven Muller and the fastest Porsche 911 GT3 R of Manthey Racing starting from eighth.

The #43 Schnitzer Motorsport BMW M6 GT3, which led Thursday night's first qualifying session in the hands of Augusto Farfus, had to settle for 10th place, nearly three seconds off the pace.

Qualifying results:

Pos.#DriversCarTimeGap
1 704 france Franck Mailleux 
sweden Andreas Simonsen 
germany  Felipe Fernandez Laser 
united_states Jeff Westphal 
SCG 003C 8'15.427  
2 29 germany Markus Winkelhock 
united_states Connor de Phillippi 
germany Christopher Mies 
south_africa Kelvin van der Linde 
Audi R8 LMS 8'16.102 0.675
3 9 netherlands Robin Frijns 
switzerland Marcel Fässler 
germany René Rast 
switzerland Nico Müller 
Audi R8 LMS 8'16.174 0.747
4 22 germany Jochen Krumbach 
germany Daniel Keilwitz 
germany Georg Weiss 
germany Oliver Kainz 
Ferrari 488 GT3 8'16.365 0.938
5 10 germany René Rast 
germany Frank Stippler 
switzerland Nico Müller 
belgium Frederic Vervisch 
Audi R8 LMS 8'16.937 1.510
6 5 germany Mike Rockenfeller 
germany Frank Stippler 
denmark Nicolaj Madsen 
germany Dennis Busch 
Audi R8 LMS 8'17.228 1.801
7 3 germany Maro Engel 
germany Dirk Müller 
germany Thomas Jäger 
germany Jan Seyffarth 
Mercedes-AMG GT3 8'17.398 1.971
8 59 germany Sven Müller 
  Steve Smith 
germany  Randy Walls 
switzerland  Hari Proczyk 
Porsche 911 GT3 R 8'18.110 2.683
9 28 germany Pierre Kaffer 
united_states Connor de Phillippi 
germany Christopher Haase 
germany Christopher Mies 
Audi R8 LMS 8'18.149 2.722
10 43 portugal Antonio Felix da Costa 
brazil Augusto Farfus 
germany Timo Scheider 
united_kingdom Alex Lynn 
BMW M6 GT3 8'18.335 2.908

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