The South African was the sole non-Mercedes-AMG driver in the second of two 15-minute sessions, each with five cars, to take pole with a with a time of 2m01.9810s in the Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 he will share with Belgians Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts.
“Just coming back to Bathurst and driving the track is an honour,” said the younger of the two van der Linde brothers contesting the opening round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge.
“My team-mates have done an amazing job so far. I was pushing on the second lap and unfortunately I went off.”
The BMW led four Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos, the fleet led by Supercars ace Broc Feeney. The Australian was 0.25s down on van der Linde in the Triple Eight entry that he will share with his regular Supercars team-mate Will Brown and Mikael Grenier.
“I’m happy,” said Feeney, who will be racing his Supercar at the same track next week. “It’s hard work across the top of the Mountain but it is a great car. Hopefully I can have a sleep-in in the morning and stroll over about lunchtime!”
Third fastest was 2023 polesitter Maro Engel (Team GruppeM) who just edged out the quickest of the Porsches driven by Daytona 24 Hour winner Matt Campbell. The Australian led the way in the first of the two five-car sessions, the Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R setting a time of 2m02.4259s.
Luca Stolz was fifth fastest in the SunEnergy1 Mercedes-AMG, the same car that has won the last two Bathurst 12 Hour races. Swiss Riccardo Feller was sixth in the fastest of the Audi R8 LMS Evos ahead Kelvin van der Linde (MPC Audi), Maxime Martin (WRT BMW) and Alessio Picariello (Shell V-Power Porsche 911 GT3R), the fastest Pro-Am entry.
Rounding out the top 10 was Jordan Love in the Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG Evo he will share with Supercars legend Jamie Whincup and Prince Jefri Ibrahim.
In the Class for Silver classified drivers, Luke Youlden was fastest (and 15th overall) in the Valmont Racing Audi.
Tim Slade led the class for the Invitational entries in his MARC II (in 20th overall) and Adam Christodoulou was best of the four GT4 entries, the Briton 24th fastest overall in his Mercedes-AMG GT4.
The race is scheduled to start at 5:45am (Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time).
