HRT Mustang Storms to Historic Monza Pole

Ford secured an historic first outright pole position in qualifying for the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup race at Monza.

Arjun Maini, Fabio Scherer and Thomas Drouet aboard the No. 64 HRT Ford Mustang GT3 Evo were never lower than second in their individual sessions to record an average time of 1:45.503.

That put them 0.152 seconds clear of the No. 3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo driven by Dani Juncadella, Chris Lulham and Jules Gounon, although the 2 Seas Motorsport-run entry will drop five grid positions after Lulham was penalised for overtaking under yellow flags in first practice.

The Ford, in which Maini set the outright pace in Q1, will therefore be joined on the front row by the No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS Evo II that also took pole in the Gold Cup category.

Although Lorenzo Ferrari was only 17^th in Q3, his team-mates Dylan Pereira and Andrea Frassineti had been firmly inside the top five in their earlier sessions to trail by 0.283 seconds on average.

Completing a superb session for HRT, Finn Wiebelhaus, Eduardo Coseteng and Maxime Oosten secured the Silver class pole and will start third overall aboard the No. 65 Mustang, with Oosten an impressive third fastest in Q3.

The No. 80 Lionspeed Porsche 911 GT3 R of Ricardo Feller, Thomas Preining and Bastian Buus will line up fourth, moving up the order from outside the top 10 in combined times with the Dane’s effort to go fifth fastest in Q3.

The leading Ferrari, AF Corse’s No. 51 296 GT3 Evo driven by Alessio Rovera, Nicklas Nielsen and Tommaso Mosca will be joined on row three by the No. 48 Winward Mercedes-AMG of Lucas Auer, Luca Stolz and Maro Engel.

The Mercedes-AMG in which Lulham pipped Scherer to pace Q2 will therefore start seventh ahead of the second of the Gold Cup entries, the No. 10 Boutsen VDS Porsche shared by Alessando Ghiretti, Robin Knutsson and Gilles Magnus and the best BMW, WRT’s No. 32 M4 GT3 Evo of Jordan Pepper, Kelvin van der Linde and Charles Weerts.

The championship-leading No. 7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Mattia Drudi, Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim completed the top 10.

Marvin Dienst, Gabriele Piana and Rinat Salikhov took the Bronze pole in their No. 87 Winward Mercedes-AMG and will line up 17th, four positions ahead of nearest class rivals Dustin Blattner, Lorenzo Patrese and Dennis Marschall in their No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari.

The fastest time in Q3 elevated second practice pace-setter Ben Dorr to third in the Silver class and 20^th overall in RJN Motorsport’s McLaren 720S GT3 EVO alongside Max Lynn and Horatio Fitz-Simon.

The second round of the Endurance Cup schedule, which uniquely among races of three-hour duration requires three mandatory pitstops, is due to get under way at 3:40 p.m. local time (09:40 a.m. EST) and can be watched on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Qualifying