Maro Engel has stormed to a record GT lap around the Macau street circuit by claiming pole position for the City of Dreams Macau GT Cup.
Driving the Erebus SLS AMG GT3, Engel dislodged Audi driver Edoardo Mortara from the provisional pole he had scored after the opening qualifying run yesterday.
The 28-year-old German Engel recorded 2:18.641s around the 6.1km circuit with Mortara second in 2:19.492 while Porsche driver Alexandre Imperatori was third fastest in 2:19.523.
Engel’s Erebus team-mate, the Dutch driver Renger van der Zande was fourth fastest, 1.2s off the stunning pole time after striking traffic.
The pole position is a massive confidence boost for Engel who has been a foundation driver in Erebus Motorsport’s E63 AMG V8 Supercars program.
He will lead away the 30-car grid City of Dreams GT Cup field for the 12 lap race.
“Pole at Macau – awesome. From the time the Erebus Motorsport SLS AMG GT3 first rolled out, it was fantastic,” Engel said.
“We just chipped away at it and we made up a huge deficit in experience from the team, the car and the driver here at Macau.”
Through AMG China a race, including a 20 minute preview show from 09:00am local time can be watched on livestream at www.erebusmotorsportgt.com