Sepang 12 Hours: Makowiecki puts Porsche on pole

Frederic Makowiecki put a Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GTR3 on pole for the Sepang 12 Hours, beating the K-Pax Racing's McLaren 650 of Alvaro Parente in the Top 15 shootout.

The 15-minute session started off with a red flag after the Spirit of Race SA's Ferrari 488 of Alessandro Pier Guidi came to a halt on its out-lap.

After a delay of a few minutes, the proceedings were restarted, with Parente lapping the circuit first with a time of 2m02.764s in the #9 McLaren.

Earl Bamber in the #911 Porsche went second, just 0.086s separating the top two at that point, before Makowiecki went quickest with a time of 2m02.634s.

The French driver's effort was enough to give the #912 team, which also features Richard Lietz and Michael Christensen, pole for Saturday's 12 Hours of Sepang race.

Lining up alongside the Porsche will be the McLaren of Parente, Shane van Gisbergen and Come Ledogar, with the sister Porsche of Bamber, Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet in third.

The top three were followed by the first of Ferrari, the #11 of Carlo van Dam, while the one-hour qualifying session topper Manabu Orido was fifth in the #88 Lamborghini Huracan.

Behind the top five came the lead #15 Audi of Laurens Vanthoor in sixth, while #16 Audi of Rene Rast was ninth, sandwiching the Ferraris of Dominic Ang Ding Xiong (#27) and Hiroki Yoshimoto (#35).

Top 15 shootout results:

Pos	Car	Class	Team	Car	Time	Gap
1	912	GT3	Manthey Racing	Porsche 911 GT3 R	02:02.6
2	9	GT3	K-PAX Racing	McLaren 650 S GT3	02:02.8	0.130
3	911	GT3	Manthey Racing	Porsche 911 GT3 R	02:02.9	0.217
4	11	GT3	Singha Motorsport Team	Ferrari 488 GT3	02:03.1	0.482
5	88	GT3	JLOC	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	02:03.3	0.630
6	15	GT3	Audi Sport Team Phoenix	Audi R8 LMS	02:03.4	0.802
7	27	GT3	Nexus Infinity	Ferrari 458 GT3	02:03.5	0.870
8	35	GT3	HubAuto Racing	Ferrari 488 GT3	02:03.7	1.024
9	16	GT3	Audi Sport Team Phoenix	Audi R8 LMS	02:04.1	1.432
10	75	GT3	T2 Motorsport	Ferrari 488 GT3	02:04.3	1.661
11	30	GT3	APR	Toyota Prius (ZVW50)	02:04.8	2.135
12	52	GT3	SAITAMA TOYOPET Green Brave	Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3	02:05.9	3.278
13	26	GTC	B-Quik Racing Team	Audi R8 LMS Cup	02:06.3	3.660
14	67	GTC	GDL Racing Team Asia	Lamborghini S Trofeo Huracan	02:07.3	4.667