Adam Takes Landmark Overall Sprint Pole in Pro-Am Aston

Jonny Adam claimed a landmark first overall Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup pole position for a Pro-Am car in qualifying for race two at Misano.

The Aston Martin factory driver posted a time of 1:31.687 to claim the outright top spot in the No. 188 Garage 59 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 that he shares with Alexander West.

Adam set his lap after taking on a new set of tires during a short red flag period around halfway through the session, which was caused by Pierre-Alexandre Jean spinning his CMR Bentley Continental GT3 into the gravel.

At that point, Jules Gounon’s 1:31.973 effort in the No. 89 AKKA-ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo was the provisional pole time to beat.

Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini driver Jack Aitken initially went faster than the Frenchman after the red flag, but the Brit’s attempt was deleted due to a breach of track limits.

With three minutes to go, Saturday’s race winner Dries Vanthoor put the No. 32 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo on top with a 1:31.740, but this only stood as the benchmark for around 20 seconds as Adam was in the process of submitting his ultimate quickest time.

Vanthoor looked on course for second until Patrick Kujala swept in to snatch a front-row starting spot for the Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020.

Kujala’s time of 1:31.698 came up just 0.011 seconds short of Adam, but the Finn nonetheless positioned Rinaldi second overall and first in the Silver Cup category.

Vanthoor settled for third and will share row two with Aitken, who recovered from his lap time deletion to post an identical time to the WRT driver. The No. 32 Audi was given the nod over the Lamborghini due to Vanthoor’s time coming earlier than Aitken’s.

Raffaele Marciello qualified fifth in the No. 88 AKKA-ASP Mercedes-AMG, while Kelvin van der Linde took sixth aboard WRT’s No. 30 machine.

Toksport WRT’s Maro Engel and AKKA-ASP’s Gounon ended up seventh and eighth in their Mercedes-AMGs.

Ben Barnicoat was ninth at the wheel of the JOTA McLaren 720S GT3, ahead of WRT’s Ryuchiro Tomita who at one point was ranked third in the overall leaderboard.

Tomita qualified second in Silver Cup, with seven Pro cars between himself and class pole-sitter Kujala.

The nearest Pro-Am car to Adam’s Garage 59 Aston was the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini driven by Henrique Chaves, who placed 14th.

RESULTS: Qualifying 2