AF Corse Ferrari on Home Pole for 3H Monza

Ferrari and AF Corse secured home pole by leading qualifying for the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup round at Monza.

Alessio Rovera, Vincent Abril and Alessandro Pier Guidi led two out of three individual sessions aboard the No. 51 Ferrari 296 GT3 to outpace the No. 7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo by 0.172 seconds.

The No. 51 crew became the fourth different pole sitter from four races this season, following on from Iron Lynx, GRT Grasser Racing Team and Rutronik Racing.

The result also marks Ferrari’s first overall Endurance Cup pole position since last year’s Barcelona season finale.

Rovera and Abril led both of their respective stages of qualifying by posting a 1:44.922 and 1:45.038.

The second session, during which Abril was at the wheel, was interrupted by a red flag when Maxime Oosten crashed the No. 98 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 exiting Variante Ascari.

The Dutchman, who is making his team debut this weekend amidst ROWE’s driver reshuffle as a result with a clash with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, was able to walk away from the crash unaided.

Pier Guidi subsequently maintained Ferrari’s advantage in session three, although he was beaten to the outright fastest time by the No. 163 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Jordan Pepper, who posted a 1:44.727.

The No. 48 Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Lucas Auer, Daniel Morad and Maro Engel qualified third, joined on the second row by the No. 32 Team WRT BMW.

Schumacher CLRT’s No. 22 Porsche 911 GT3 R rounded out the top five, ahead of the No. 163 Lamborghini.

Team WRT’s No. 46 BMW slotted into seventh, ahead of the No. 34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin that sat as high as third by the end of the opening segment but eventually filtered down to eighth.

The No. 188 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Miguel Ramos, Adam Smalley and Louis Prette took Bronze Cup pole in ninth overall, with the sole remaining ROWE BMW completing the overall top ten.

Pole position in Gold Cup went to the No. 21 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin in 21st overall, with GRT Grasser Racing Team securing Silver Cup pole with its No. 19 Lamborghini driven by Mateo Llarena, Artem Petrov and Baptiste Moulin.

The 3 Hours of Monza will kick off this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. CEST (9:30 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Qualifying