Hadrien David has given Akkodis ASP Team the perfect opportunity to quickly bounce back from a troubled start to the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship by producing a stellar lap to grab the LMGT3 category pole position at Spa-Francorchamps today (8 May).
The #78 Lexus RC F – which secured its maiden pole in FIA WEC competition at the same circuit last year – narrowly snuck through the first phase of qualifying, with local hero Tom Van Rompuy advancing to Hyperpole by the margin of a mere 0.067 seconds.
Series rookie David – the reigning Michelin Le Mans Cup LMP3 class champion, who had turned heads by snatching a spot on the front row for the curtain-raising contest at Imola last month – then continued to impress as he outpaced all of his rivals in Hyperpole.
The result represented Lexus’ third pole position in LMGT3 – all three achieved by the #78 – as the 22-year-old Frenchman improved upon Akkodis’ 2025 benchmark at Spa by more than a second.
That delivered a welcome fillip for the Jérôme Policand-helmed outfit, which had suffered disappointment at Imola, where both of its cars dropped out of strong positions in the race within a lap of each other. Those early-season woes continued into free practice in Belgium, as Van Rompuy lost a wheel in FP2 and the sister #87 RC F found itself confined to the garage for a while during FP3 – but in Hyperpole, everything finally came together.
“I love Spa!” enthused David. “I had pole here in Formula 4, the Formula Regional European Championship, LMP3 last year and now LMGT3. I’m lucky to be part of Akkodis, who gave me a great car and I knew we were going to be quite strong this weekend. This is a team effort, and I have great engineers and team-mates – and with Tom [Van Rompuy] getting us into Hyperpole, that gave me a shot!”
Lexus at one point looked likely to lock out the front row, with Clemens Schmid building upon Petru Umbrărescu’s pace-setting form from the first part of the session but ultimately finding himself obliged to settle for fourth after encountering traffic on his best effort.
In-between the two Akkodis entries on the grid will be the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage – Zacharie Robichon missing out on pole by just under two tenths-of-a-second – and the #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang, courtesy of a competitive run from Ben Tuck.
At the other end of the order in the 18-strong LMGT3 field, a number of fancied runners fell at the first hurdle, including all three podium-finishers from Imola – the #69 Team WRT BMW, #33 TF Sport Corvette and #92 The Bend Manthey Porsche. The same was true of Garage 59’s pair of McLarens – the #10 720S Evo that took pole in Italy and the #58 that had topped the timesheets earlier in the day in Belgium in FP3.
The TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps – round two of the campaign – will get underway at 14:00 CEST tomorrow (Saturday, 9 May).
Check out the full qualifying times.
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