Mühlner Motorsport will start the 2026 Michelin 992 Endurance Cup from pole position after AF Motorsport lost the fastest lap from Friday’s Top 5 Shoot-Out at Spa-Francorchamps.
Dylan Pereira initially appeared to have secured a dominant pole for AF Motorsport in the No.17 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992 I), setting a lap around 1.7 seconds faster than the rest of the Shoot-Out field. Officials subsequently deleted the lap following an infringement, promoting Mühlner Motorsport’s PRO entry to the head of the grid.
Conrad Tox Leveau’s 2m21.627s therefore earned Mühlner pole for Saturday’s 12-hour race, with the Belgian squad’s car shared by Leveau, Joshua Bednarski and Rolando Saca.
Mühlner promoted as Pereira loses Shoot-Out benchmark
AF Motorsport had entered the Shoot-Out after placing second on aggregate across the three conventional Qualifying sessions. Pereira then appeared to produce the decisive performance, comfortably topping the single-lap showdown in the No.17 Porsche.
The lap did not stand, however, and its deletion dropped AF Motorsport to fifth on the final grid. Pereira shares the PRO-AM entry with Andre Fernandes, Angelo Fontana and Christian Potolicchio.
Mühlner consequently inherited pole through Leveau’s 2m21.627s, but the margin at the front remains exceptionally small. LMR Motorsport’s Dieter Svepes finished only 0.047s slower and will start alongside the Belgian team on the front row.
Svepes shares LMR’s AM-B Porsche with Andre Marques and Leandro Martins.
Chazel takes third as Red Camel also penalised
The No.920 Chazel Technologie Course Porsche will start third after a strong Qualifying performance from Marc Guillot, Gilles Colombani, Paul Trojani and Jean-Mathieu Leandri.
Red Camel-Jordans.nl will line up fourth after suffering its own Shoot-Out penalty. Rik Breukers had pushed hard during his flying lap but ran wide in sector three, resulting in the deletion of his time.
The Dutch squad still starts immediately ahead of AF Motorsport, with Rik Breukers sharing the car with brother Luc, father Ivo and Fabian Danz.
The penalties therefore significantly reshaped the front of the grid after a Qualifying programme in which both AF Motorsport and Red Camel had repeatedly featured among the fastest entries.
Early Red Flag disrupts Qualifying 1
The opening Qualifying session ended up heavily compressed after Marques spun the LMR Motorsport Porsche before the field had established representative lap times.
Officials stopped the session and restarted it with only 11 minutes remaining. Leandri responded quickest for Chazel Technologie Course, setting a 2m23.459s that remained unbeaten through to the chequered flag.
Danz put Red Camel second with a 2m24.110s before electing to return to the pits, while Potolicchio placed AF Motorsport third and finished around half a second behind the Red Camel driver.
The opening session immediately put Chazel into a strong aggregate position while several teams faced pressure to recover through Q2 and Q3.
Red Camel takes control during Q2
Bednarski initially led the second session for Mühlner with a 2m22.438s, but Luc Breukers soon moved Red Camel ahead by producing a 2m21.631s.
Breukers pitted on the following lap, satisfied with his effort, and Red Camel moved onto provisional aggregate pole as the session entered its final five minutes.
AF Motorsport held second through Fontana, while Mühlner initially occupied third. Chazel then moved narrowly ahead of the Belgian team in the combined order after Colombani recorded a late 2m25.922s.
Red Camel therefore entered the final conventional session with a little more than a second in hand over AF Motorsport on aggregate.
Breukers and Meijer set rapid Q3 pace
Rik Breukers strengthened Red Camel’s position immediately in Q3 by producing a 2m20.610s on his first representative flying lap. That increased the team’s aggregate advantage to approximately 1.5 seconds over Mühlner.
Leveau responded for Mühlner but finished around eight tenths slower, while the outright benchmark continued to fall during the closing stages.
Paul Meijer ultimately produced the fastest lap of the conventional Qualifying programme with a 2m20.244s for Theeba Motorsport by Quanloop EST1 Racing. The performance could not significantly improve the team’s aggregate position, however, because its Q1 laps had been deleted for track-limit infringements.
Pereira also broke the 2m21s barrier, setting a 2m20.522s for AF Motorsport. That secured second on aggregate after the three sessions, around six tenths behind Red Camel, before the Shoot-Out gave the leading five cars one final opportunity to determine the front of the grid.
Speed Lover leads teams outside Shoot-Out
Speed Lover ended the aggregate Qualifying phase sixth with its No.78 Porsche shared by Nick Hunter, Garry Terclavers and Kurt Hansen.
HRT Performance followed in seventh with Steven Gambrell, Massimo Vignali and Seth Gilmore, while Meijer’s Theeba Motorsport entry took eighth despite missing a representative Q1 time. He shares the car with siblings Ali and Reema Juffali.
Those teams missed the opportunity to fight for pole in the final Shoot-Out but remain well placed for the 12-hour race, where strategy, consistency and reliability will carry substantially more importance than outright Qualifying pace.
Mühlner leads intriguing front row into 12-hour race
With both Pereira and Rik Breukers losing their Shoot-Out laps, Mühlner and LMR Motorsport emerged with the strongest starting positions for Saturday.
Only 0.047s separates the two front-row cars, while Chazel starts immediately behind in third. Red Camel and AF Motorsport will begin fourth and fifth respectively, giving both penalised teams an opportunity to recover over the full endurance distance.
Competitors return to the circuit for the one-hour night practice at 20:50 local time on Friday before attention shifts completely to Saturday’s race.
The 2026 Michelin 992 Endurance Cup begins at 09:45 local time on Saturday, 5 September and runs continuously for 12 hours. The race will be streamed live through Creventic Motorsports TV on YouTube, with live timing and coverage links available through the event’s official website.
