Levorato: Mustang GT3 Front Row Lockout “Means A Lot”

Giammarco Levorato says scoring the first pole position for the Ford Mustang GT3 in the FIA World Endurance Championship “means a lot” as he and Ben Tuck scored a front row lockout for the Proton Competition team at the Circuit of The Americas.

In the No. 88 Mustang GT3 he shares with Stefano Gattuso and Dennis Olsen, Levorato set the pace in mixed conditions in the LMGT3 Hyperpole shootout, as the pair of entries ended up over sixth tenths clear of their opposition.

It followed a first qualifying session in which Bronze-rated Gattuso was initially eliminated in 11th place, only to be reinstated as the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Lexus had its lap times scratched for taking the checkered flag twice.

After hurriedly getting back in the No. 88 car, Levorato went on to pip his opposite number in the No. 77 Tuck by a slender margin of just 0.018 seconds.

Levorato recalled: “Stefano found some traffic on his fastest lap, so he was P11, and he was out of Hyperpole and I was getting changed getting ready to go to the hotel! I had to jump in the car quickly; the session had already started by a few seconds.

“The conditions were not full rain, but it was slippery for sure. It’s conditions that you never like, because you have no references, and also it was my first time at this track, so I don’t know the curbs and everything so well.

“The car felt really good, so really happy about the result, and one and two for Ford, and the first pole position for the Mustang in the WEC.

“It means a lot to get pole at Ford’s home race. We had some bad luck during the season, so for sure it’s a really good achievement.”

The Mustang GT3 has experienced mixed fortunes in its second WEC season, scoring second place with the No. 88 car in the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps but managing no better than seventh place across the other four races so far this year.

On Proton’s chances of converting its front row lockout into a strong result on Sunday, Levorato added: “The race pace is really good, both in dry and wet conditions.

“We had a lot of chance to try in dry conditions [in practice] and the race pace was really good. Also from last year, we know the car is good in very wet conditions, and now we showed it’s good in these ‘medium’ conditions. So I am confident.

“We just need to stay out of trouble, be careful about track limits [violations] because they are easy to do, have a safe race and have a car to fight at the end.”

Tuck, who shares the No. 77 entry with Bernardo Sousa and Ben Barker, described the front-row lockout achieved by the Proton Fords as “incredible” despite the disappointment of losing out to Levorato by such a narrow margin.

“Massive congrats to the whole team,” Tuck said. “We’ve been trying so hard this year, putting the hours in, and trying to develop the car as much as we can, getting it in the setup window. For Gianmarco to get pole is great for the whole team.

“Second is the first loser, so for me personally it’s a bit tough, but for the whole team, a 1-2 is incredible. We are all super-happy.”

Like Levorato, Tuck was upbeat for Proton’s chances of fighting for a first LMGT3 victory in the race, particularly if conditions remain unstable.

“I think we can do really well if the conditions are like this,” he said. “Both Bronzes, Bernardo and Stefano, they were at the top of the times [in Q1] until the last lap, when I think they both had traffic, and just got bumped down to ninth and tenth.

“So if it’s like this for the start of the race, we can be really confident.”

Davey Euwema contributed to this report