Pole position in Touring Cars went the way of Team Belgium thanks to an in-form Gilles Magnus who will head Team Netherlands in the first of Sunday's FIA Motorsport Games race action for the discipline.
The triple FIA WTCR race winner backed up his fine form in Free Practice after topping both sessions ahead of the 30-minute Qualifying outing, but had to pull out a best time of 2m11.831s in a tight session on Saturday evening at Circuit Paul Ricard.
Team Belgium’s charge did enough to grab pole position for the opening 25-minute Qualification race on Sunday morning, where it will be an all-Audi RS3 LMS front row as Team Netherlands driver Tom Coronel climbed his similar Comtoyou Racing-run car up into second spot, just 0.135s shy of pole.
The Dutchman’s effort was enough to demote Team Ireland to third spot despite the efforts of 2019 Renault Clio Cup UK champion Jack Young, who was himself a mere 0.144s away from the top spot on the grid in his Honda Civic Type-R.
On their tails were Team Sweden and their driver Jan Backman, making it three Audis inside the top four ahead of Team Spain with their Cupra qualifying fifth in the hands of the rapid Isidro Callejas Gomez.
Argentina were next up with Ignacio Montenegro in the second quickest of the Honda Civic Type-R runners, getting the better of Team France (Teddy Clairet), Hong Kong China (Andy Cheuk Wai Yan), Latvia (Valters Zviedres) and Team Switzerland rounding out the top 10, the latter with Cupra competitor Gabriel Muller Agrelo Lusquinos.
Sunday begins with the Qualifying race at 9:40 in the morning, which will set the grid for the all-important main Touring Car race which will decide the medals over a 30-minute (+1 lap) distance.