Rovera Charges to Pole Position at Imola

Alessio Rovera took pole position for the 4 Hours of Imola, taking his second LMP2 pole position in a week.

The young Italian set a best lap of 1:32.269 behind the wheel of the No. 88 AF Corse Oreca 07 Gibson.

Rovera’s best lap, which was an improvement his own flying lap from earlier in the session. 

He outpaced Mathias Beche’s No. 31 TDS Racing Oreca by 0.344 seconds.

It is the second weekend in a row that Rovera has taken pole in LMP2 qualifying, having also gone quickest during the FIA World Endurance Championship qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps.

Louis Deletraz slotted in third for Prema, with Cool Racing’s Yifei Ye jumping up to fourth place at the checkered flag.

Job van Uitert rounded out the top five for Panis Racing ahead of Phil Hanson, Alex Peroni and Jack Aitken.

Paul-Loup Chatin was ninth for IDEC Sport as Reshad de Gerus completed the top ten for Duqueine Team.

Malthe Jakobsen took a dominant pole in the LMP3 category, half a second up on the rest of the field

Jakobsen set a series of fast flying laps behind the wheel of the No. 17 Cool Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan before settling on a 1:37.182.

That was enough to pull a gap of 0.492 seconds to the No. 4 DKR Engineering Duqueine D08 Nissan driven by Sebastian Alvarez.

Alvarez put in a late improvement at the line, but it was not enough to come anywhere near Jakobsen’s pole time.

The No. 14 Inter Europol Competition Ligier was third, joined on the second row by United Autosports’ Bailey Voisin.

Cool Racing’s No. 27 Ligier rounded out the top five.

Al Harthy charges to maiden ELMS pole

Ahmad Al Harthy took a strong pole position in the GTE class, outqualifying Sarah Bovy.

The No. 69 Oman Racing with TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR reeled off a lap of 1:41.974 to take pole, 0.383 seconds ahead of Bovy’s No. 83 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

Al Harthy locked in his fastest lap early and at one point held a gap of over eight tenths compared to Bovy.

The Belgian posted a late improvement to close the gap somewhat, but remained in second place.

Andrew Haryanto completed the top three in the No. 18 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19.

In doing so, Haryanto unseated the No. 32 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari of Gabriele Lanciere, with Giacomo Petrobelli rounding out the top five for JMW Motorsport.

The 4 Hours of Imola kicks off Sunday at 11:30 a.m. local time.