“Well, I certainly did make it more exciting than I had planned on,” Davis quipped after coming up just short in his bid to gain his first pole of the current campaign. “I wasn't able to maximise the lap early on when the tyres were at their best.

“I was happy with the Pirelli tyre all the way through the run. I was able to get a good run in there just one lap from the end. I was hoping to have a better one after it, but I had some traffic and I made a mistake on another lap – it would have been quick.

“It's really good for the Stevenson Motorsports crew – it's very exciting. We've been working really hard, making a lot of changes the whole week. Bryan [Sellers] and I are good friends. It's the second time actually; last [time he got] pole I think I was second on the grid, too.”

Points co-leader Kelly Collins qualified his #07 Banner Racing Banner Engineering Pontiac GXP.R third, and will be joined on the second row by Patrick Barrett in the #32 PR1 Motorsports Miracle Sealants/Konika Minolta Pontiac GXP.R. Rounding out the top five in GT qualifying was Ryan Phinny in the #21 Matt Connolly Motorsports Pontiac GTO.R.

Collins and Paul Edwards lead Nick Ham and Sylvain Tremblay by a scant six points with two races remaining, with Davis and Robin Liddell 16 points behind the pace-setters. Ham qualified sixth in the #70 SpeedSource Castrol Mazda RX-8, with the 112-lap race due to cover 250 miles with a two-hour, 45-minute time limit.