Kobayashi Takes Monza Pole in Tight Qualifying Session

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Kamui Kobayashi narrowly beat Ferrari AF Corse driver Antonio Fuoco to claim pole position for the 6 Hours of Monza as the top seven Hypercars qualified within half a second.

Kobayashi steered the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid to a time of 1:35.358 to notch up his second pole of the FIA World Endurance Championship season, while Fuoco split the Japanese cars to put the No. 50 Ferrari 499P on the front row.

However, the Italian driver marginally missed out on delivering a popular home-soil result for Ferrari by just 0.017 seconds.

Peugeot driver Jean-Eric Vergne was the first to set a representative lap time in Saturday’s 15- minute Hypercar qualifying session, but the Toyotas took charge with eight and a half minutes to go.

Brendon Hartley shot to the top of the times in the No. 8 Toyota but Kobayashi immediately eclipsed the New Zealander’s effort. That process was repeated on the next lap, as Hartley improved to a 1:35.460 but Kobayashi beat him by little over a tenth.

Fuoco then climbed to second with a time of 1:35.375 but it was Kobayashi who came away with the top spot.

Vergne settled for fourth in the No. 93 Peugeot 9X8, three-tenths short of pole, while Alex Lynn was fifth in the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R.

Antonio Giovinazzi, who had one of his lap times deleted for breaching track limits, ended up sixth aboard the No. 51 Ferrari rin by the AF Corse factory team.

Seventh-placed Gustavo Menezes, driving for Peugeot, was the last driver within half a second of Kobayashi’s effort.

The best of the Porsche 963s was the No. 5 Penske-run example driven by Frederic Makowiecki, although the factory-run cars were split by privateer Hertz Team JOTA.

Kevin Estre completed the top ten in the No. 6 Penske Porsche, followed by the entries from Glickenhaus, Porsche customer Proton Competition and Vanwall.

In LMP2, Robert Kubica flew to his first career WEC pole driving the No. 41 Team WRT Oreca 07 Gibson.

The Polish driver, who led the category in Free Practice 2, set successive purple lap times while running on his own and ended up with a 1:39.354 benchmark.

Pietro Fittipaldi was second in the JOTA Oreca, 0.353 seconds down on Kubica, while Phil Hanson jumped to third at the end in the No. 22 United Autosports car.

The top three all broke the 1m 40s barrier, with Gabriel Aubry taking fourth for Vector Sport and Albert Costa going fifth-fastest for Inter Europol Competition.

Bovy Claims Second GTE-Am Pole of Season

Iron Dames driver Sarah Bovy took her second pole of the season in GTE-Am with a time of 1:47.632 behind the wheel of the No. 85 Porsche 911 RSR-19.

Bovy set the pace by a margin of four-tenths, as Ahmad Al Harthy took second for Aston Martin team ORT by TF and Proton Competition Porsche driver Christian Ried who improved right at the end.

Al Harthy was the provisional pole-sitter when the session was red-flagged due to a spin for Efrin Castro’s Team Project 1-AO Porsche at Ascari that sprayed gravel over the racing line.

However, when track action resumed, it was Bovy who charged to the head of the field with a 1:48.182 that she subsequently improved on by around half a second.

Mike Wainwright went second for GR Racing but was shuffled down to fifth by late times from Al Harthy, Ried and Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari driver Luis Perez Companc.

RESULTS: Qualifying