Intercontinental Blancpain GT champion Raffaele Marciello has set the pace for this weekend's Bathurst 12 Hour, and declared his outfit will be among the leading contenders should they stay safe on Sunday.
The Italian, who teams up with German co-drivers Maximilian Buhk and Maximilian Goetz, put their Mercedes AMG GT GT3 on top of the time sheets after Friday's practice sessions at Mount Panorama.
The trio headed the Audi team of Kelvin van der Linde, Frederic Vervisch and Supercars' driver Garth Tander.
The BMW outfit of Brazilian Augusto Farfus, Germany's Martin Tomczyk and Supercars' Chaz Mostert was third.
Marciello, a former Sauber Formula One driver, finished second in the last year's Bathurst 12 Hour with a SunEnergy AMG team which also featured seven-time Supercars and four-time Bathurst 1000 Champion Jamie Whincup.
Having claimed a maiden Blancpain GT Championship last year, Marciello is brimming with confidence about adding the Bathurst 12 Hour to his list of achievements.
"I have all the confidence in the world. Everything looks good, the team is good, it's just to stay safe until the race and the last hour," he said, downplaying the significance of clocking a fast time.
"Sunday is all that counts. It's more to put pressure on others than on us because we know where we are and what we can do. We know we can win, so do two or three other teams there."
The #27 HubAuto Ferrari of Australians Nick Foster, Tim Slade and Nick Percat were fourth fastest.
"The Ferrari has some pretty good history around the mountain," Slade said.
"We were half confident the Ferrari package would be competitive again. Once we knew that we focused on race preparation."
The final session of the day was the best marker of those who were on top of their cars following a succession of red flag stoppages in the three morning sessions.
One delay followed an accident involving American GT driver Tim Pappas who was taken to hospital for tests having crashed his Porsche 911 GT3-R into a concrete wall at the end of Conrod Straight.
There are now two morning qualifying sessions and afternoon top-10 shootout on Saturday prior to Sunday's main race.
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