Weerts Narrowly Beats Abril to Misano Race 1 Pole

Team WRT driver Charles Weerts beat JP Motorsport’s Vincent Abril to take pole for the first race of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS round at Misano.

Weerts put the No. 32 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II on pole for Saturday’s 60-minute race with a time of 1:31.268, beating Abril’s earlier benchmark by 0.033 seconds.

The point for pole marginally extended Weerts and Dries Vanthoor’s Sprint Cup championship lead over Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy to 1.5 points.

Boguslavskiy qualified third in the No. 89 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, putting the French squad just behind its main title rival Team WRT on the Race 1 grid.

Weerts emerged as the early pace-setter in the 20-minute qualifying session, clocking a time of 1:31.651 just after the halfway mark.

Most of the 27-car field including the No. 32 Audi then entered the pits for new tires, at which point Abril used the clear track to to go three-tenths clear in the No. 112 McLaren 720S GT3.

The Monegasque driver’s 1:31.301 effort, which put JP Motorsport ahead of six Audis, withstood several improvements throughout the field in the second half until Weerts narrowly went ahead in the closing stages.

It marked the third Sprint Cup pole at Misano for Weerts, who also won both of last year’s races at the Italian circuit alongside his fellow Audi Sport factory driver Vanthoor.

Akkodis ASP took both spots on the second row as Jim Pla qualified fourth behind his teammate Boguslavskiy.

Lorenzo Patrese took third in his maiden GTWC Europe Sprint Cup qualifying session driving the No. 12 Tresor by Car Collection Audi.

The 16-year-old late stand-in for Luca Ghiotto finished one position ahead of Simon Gachet in the sister No. 11 Car Collection R8.

Silver Cup pole-sitter Thomas Neubauer was seventh overall aboard the No. 30 WRT Audi and will share the fourth row with fellow Silver contender Pierre-Alexandre Jean, driving the No. 53 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020.

Jean qualified above a quartet of Audis including the No. 25 Sainteloc Junior Team car which set the pace in both of Friday’s practice outings.

The Pro-Am pole went to Miguel Ramos who set a time of 1:32.803 in the No. 188 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3, which is due to start from 20th position outright.

Valentino Rossi took 16th place at his home circuit in the No. 46 Audi, which had a high-speed rotation exiting the Turn 13 right-hander approaching the end of the session.

The first race of the weekend takes place at 3 p.m. CEST (9 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Qualifying 1