AF Corse Takes First Ferrari 296 GT3 Pole in Endurance Cup

Alessio Rovera, Robert Shwartzman and Nicklas Nielsen gave the Ferrari 296 GT3 its first overall pole position in Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup ahead of the season finale at Barcelona.

The drivers of the No. 51 Ferrari posted an average time of 1:39.454 across three 15-minute qualifying sessions on Saturday morning, with Rovera and Nielsen leading their respective groups.

The factory trio ended up 0.151 seconds ahead of the second-placed Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 driven by Mirko Bortolotti, Andrea Caldarelli and Jordan Pepper.

It was a strong morning for AF Corse, which has endured a tough first Endurance Cup season with the new 296 GT3, as the Italian squad also qualified third with its No. 71 car.

Rovera set the pace in the first session with teammate Antonio Fuoco in second, but their respective co-drivers Shwartzman and Daniel Serra only managed 11th and ninth in Q2.

It meant that the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini held the provisional pole after two sessions courtesy of Bortolotti and Caldarelli having the best average, despite neither of them topping the table individually.

Q2 saw Jules Gounon beat the traffic to a clean track and produce an impressive 1:39.017 — the fastest outright lap of qualifying — aboard the No. 88 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo which elevated the points-leading car to second on average.

It came after Gounon’s co-driver Raffaele Marciello only finished 10th in Q1 due to his potential best effort being deleted for a track limits breach.

However, after its mid-qualifying dip, the No. 51 Ferrari returned to the top of the combined leaderboard in the deciding run as Nielsen went quickest on a 1:39.103.

Pepper ranked 13th in the Lamborghini, around seven-tenths behind Nielsen, while ASP driver Timur Boguslavskiy was almost two seconds shy of the Ferrari Hypercar driver.

Despite Gounon’s middle session benchmark, the No. 88 Mercedes-AMG qualified ninth for Sunday afternoon’s three-hour race, four places ahead of its title rival the No. 98 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3.

Marciello, Gounon and Boguslavskiy hold an 18-point lead over Marco Wittmann, Philipp Eng and Nick Yelloly in the Endurance Cup standings.

Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Fabian Schiller were the fastest Mercedes-AMG lineup on average in third overall for the Al Manar Racing-backed GetSpeed Performance squad.

Fifth went to the ASP crew of Maximilian Goetz, Thomas Drouet and Lorenzo Ferrari, while the Rutronik Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Thomas Preining, Laurin Heinrich and Dennis Olsen took sixth.

Fellow Porsche squad Dinamic GT came through in seventh, ahead of the Gold Cup pole-sitting No. 19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini of Leonardo Pulcini, Michele Beretta and Pierre-Louis Chovet who is making his first Endurance Cup appearance of the season.

Pole in Silver Cup also went to a Lamborghini crew, with the Grasser Racing Team trio of Glenn van Berlo, Clemens Schmid and Benjamin Hites finishing 23rd overall.

Porsche team Pure Rxcing set the pace in Bronze Cup and ST Racing with Rinaldi led the way in Pro-Am with its blue and yellow Ferrari.

The final race of the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup season starts at 3 p.m. CEST (9 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Qualifying (combined)