Milesi Denies Lynn 4H Imola Pole

Charles Milesi narrowly beat Alex Lynn to pole position for the 4 Hours of Imola with a last-gasp flyer in a red-flagged qualifying session.

The Alpine Hypercar driver steered the No. 65 Panis Racing Oreca 07 Gibson to a best lap of 1:30.829, beating Algarve Pro Racing’s No. 25 machine by 0.132 seconds.

Lynn had held the upper hand in the session after it had restarted following a red flag triggered by James Allen finding the gravel at Acque Minerale aboard the No. 30 Duqueine Team Oreca.

After the restart, Lynn set a pair of quick laps and moved to the top, with pole position appearing secure as he fended off a challenge from Cool Racing’s Frederik Vesti by 0.090 seconds.

A last-minute improvement from Milesi dropped Cadillac Hypercar driver Lynn to second, with Vesti eventually ending up fourth as Felipe Drugovich jumped to third for Vector Sport.

Malthe Jakobsen completed the top five in the No. 37 Cool Racing Oreca, ahead of Inter Europol Competition driver Oliver Gray and Robert Kubica.

Kubica, piloting the No. 14 AO by TF Oreca, sat atop the timesheets before the red flag came out but filtered down to seventh, while the top ten was completed by the two United Autosports cars of Ben Hanley and Paul di Resta as well as IDEC Sport’s Reshad de Gerus.

Giorgio Roda took a dominant LMP2 Pro-Am pole, beating Rodrigo Sales and Francois Perrodo.

Roda, piloting the No. 77 Proton Competition Oreca, stormed to a best lap of 1:33.093 to beat Sales’ No. 29 Richard Mille by TDS Racing car by 0.532 seconds.

The Italian had extended the gap to well over a second before Sales and Perrodo closed in, with the No. 29 car and the No. 83 AF Corse machine battling for second place in class.

Perrodo eventually had to settle for third, but still ahead of the No. 19 Team Virage Oreca of Tony Wells and John Falb for Nielsen Racing.

Duqueine Takes 1-2 in LMP3, Bovy Charges to LMGT3 Pole

DKR Engineering’s Wyatt Brichacek charged to pole in LMP3, leading an all-Duqueine front row together with Oscar Tunjo.

The No. 4 Duqueine D08 Nissan set a series of quick laps and ended up with a 1:37.776, beating Tunjo’s No. 12 WTM by Rinaldi Racing car by 0.243 seconds.

Gael Julien, the best-placed Ligier driver aboard the No. 15 RLR M Sport JS P30 Nissan, was over a half a second back in third place with Kai Askey fourth for Inter Europol Competition.

Manuel Espirito Santo completed the top five in class in the No. 17 Cool Racing Ligier, dropping nearly a second to pole sitter Brichacek in the process.

Sarah Bovy took a last-gasp pole position in LMGT3, beating Racing Spirit of Leman’s Derek DeBoer by 0.127 seconds.

The Belgian steered the No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 GT3 R to a best lap of 1:43.349 as the checkered flag fell, taking her third straight ELMS pole this season.

DeBoer was filtered down to second ahead of the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Hiroshi Hamaguchi, with Takeshi Kimura and Martin Berry completing the top five in class for Kessel Racing and Grid Motorsport by TF respectively.

The 4 Hours of Imola kicks off at 11:30 a.m. CEST (5:30 a.m. ET).