Fuoco Leads Ferrari Front-Row Sweep in Macau

Antonio Fuoco led a 1-2 for Ferrari drivers in qualifying for the FIA GT World Cup on the streets of Macau ahead of brand stablemate Yifei Ye.

In the first-ever Super Pole session, in which the top ten drivers from first qualifying were given just two flying laps to determine their grid positions, Fuoco was the second-to-last driver to hit the track in his No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.

With a best time of 2:15.535, Fuoco outpaced the Harmony Racing machine of fellow factory Ferrari driver Ye by 0.274 seconds to claim pole for Saturday’s Qualifying Race.

Fuoco had only been second-fastest in Q1 behind the Audi Sport Asia car of Joel Eriksson, who topped that session with a 2:15.927 effort.

That made Eriksson the final driver to go out in Q2, as the running order was the reverse of the top ten in Q1, but the Swede couldn’t match his earlier effort and could only go fifth-fastest behind Edoardo Mortara and Alessio Picariello.

Mortara was the final driver to dip beneath the 2:16 mark in his No. 63 Absolute Corse Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, with Thursday pacesetter Picariello exactly half a second off the pace in the best of the Absolute Porsche 911 GT3 Rs, the No. 911 car.

Raffaele Marciello was sixth in his ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO, followed by the Porsches of DTM champion and Macau novice Ayhancan Guven and Laurin Heinrich.

Completing the top ten were Luca Engstler’s Lamborghini and Christopher Haase in the second of the Phantom Global-run Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo IIs.

There were several leading drivers who failed to progress into Super Pole, including the Team WRT BMW of Sheldon van der Linde, who nosed into the barriers at Moorish eight minutes into the opening half-hour session, bringing out the red flags.

Eliminated after the session was Dorian Boccolacci’s Phantom Global Porsche – he had seemingly made it through in 10th place but later had his best time deleted (to Engstler’s benefit) for using too much power and will instead start 14th.

Also knocked out in the dramatic closing moments of the session was Laurens Vanthoor in his Absolute Porsche, which had been rebuilt after his Thursday free practice crash.

Vanthoor ultimately missed out on progressing by just 0.065 seconds and will start the Qualifying Race 11th.

The sole Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo will start 12th courtesy of Benjamin Goethe, while the other two cars eliminated in Q1 were Adderly Fong’s Uno Racing Audi and the Harmony Racing Ferrari of Deng Yi.

Saturday’s 10-lap Qualifying Race is due to begin at 2:35 p.m. local time (1:35 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying