On the street circuit in Valencia, René Rast secured his fourth fastest qualifying time in succession and takes up the ninth round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup on Sunday from pole position. With the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup of VELTINS MRS Racing in mid-summer temperatures, the German was six-hundredths of a second faster than last year’s winner Jeroen Bleekemolen (Netherlands) who drives for Konrad Motorport as the title defender.

In the fight for pole position, René Rast left himself all the time in the world. When Jeroen Bleekemolen had finished his hunt for top times on the Grand Prix circuit in the America’s Cup harbour, the winner of the last three Supercup races was still waiting in the pits. Only seven and a half minutes before the end of the qualifying session, the reigning champion of the Carrera Cup Deutschland went out and with a perfect lap snatched the pole-setting time. Lining up behind the title favourite on the second row of the grid is the Walter Lechner Racing School pilot Damien Faulkner (Ireland) who was vice-champion in 2007 and 2008, as well as Austria’s Norbert Siedler (VELTINS MRS Racing). For both, this marked their best qualifying result of the season.

Only two thousandths of a second slower than Norbert Siedler, Jiri Janak from the Czech Republic (Konrad Motorsport) shares the third grid row with Slovakia’s Stefan Rosina (Walter Lechner Racing School). The Brazilian Valdeno Brito (Konrad Motorsport Austria) secured the seventh fastest time in qualifying and heads into his first Supercup race from the fourth row on Sunday. Alongside the Brazilian sits American William Longhorne (SANITEC Racing). Rounding off the top ten on the grid are SPS Performance teammates Patrick Huisman (Netherlands) and Richard Williams (Great Britain). Supercup record winner Huisman celebrates his 43rd birthday on Sunday.

René Rast (pole-sitter): “When it works, it really works. My fourth straight pole position – what a great feeling. And my fastest lap was not that good. I wanted to stop and try again but decided to keep going. Funnily enough it then turned out to be good enough for the pole.”

Jeroen Bleekemolen (second qualifier): “Second again. I’m not 100 percent happy about this. It’s a shame really, I was very fast today, but I did make a mistake in the second sector and I must have lost two-tenths because of that. I’m sure I could have set pole position, but now we just have to try to make up for it in the race.”

Damien Faulkner (third qualifier): “This result is the reward for the hard work my team has put in. We didn’t start the season well, but we never gave up. Now we are finally back. We made a change to the car before the qualifying session but then I only had one lap to test it out otherwise I’m sure I could have achieved a first row result. Still, we are pleased and hope we can repeat this good performance in the race.”

1. René Rast (GER), VELTINS MRS Racing, 2:09.561 minutes
2. Jeroen Bleekemolen (NED), Konrad Motorsport, + 0.062 seconds
3. Damien Faulkner (IRL), Walter Lechner Racing School, + 0.310
4. Norbert Siedler (AUT), VELTINS MRS Racing, + 0.537
5. Jiri Janak (CZE), Konrad Motorsport, + 0.539
6. Stefan Rosina (SVK), Walter Lechner Racing School, + 0.571