Rinaldi Ferraris Lock Out Front Row at Monza

After going fastest in Free Practice and Pre-Qualifying, Rinaldi Racing dominated Qualifying for the opening round of the Blancpain Endurance Series at Monza.

Norbert Siedler put the green No. 333 Rinaldi Racing on pole with a 1:46.571 in the dying minutes of the final Q3 session, almost a second quicker then yesterday’s overall best time, also set by the Austrian.

“The team did a great job over whole weekend,” said Sielder. “I had a lot of traffic on my first fast lap, but knew I could be lot quicker and the car felt great in the final lap.

“My teammate Rinat Salikhov will do the first and third stint, we’re only focusing on a win in the Pro-Am Cup.”

The German Ferrari team also claimed P2, with Pierre Kaffer ending up +0.260s behind his teammate.

The new Lamborghini Huracán GT3 immediately showed its pace, claiming the pole in the Pro Cup with the third time overall.

“Grasser Racing has really done a great job, building up a new car in just 20 days. The main object is to finish the race and stay in the top 10,” said Fabio Babini.

Fresh of yesterday’s ELMS race at Silverstone, Michael Lyons drove his No. 11 Kessel Racing Ferrari to P4 (+0.913s), in front of the Leonard Motorsport AMR V12 Vantage and the No. 52 AF Corse Ferrari of Cedric Sbirrazzuoli and Adrien De Leener, one of the revelations of the weekend so far.

Laurens Vanthoor was second in the Pro Cup, but will start ninth on the grid, closely followed by the No. 7 M-Sport Bentley of Steven Kane, and the No. 84 HTP Continental GT3 of Mike Parisy.

Both of the second generation Audi R8 LMS ended up in the second half of the top 20, with the No. 2 WRT car of Nico Mueller in P14 and the Phoenix No. 6 in P18.

Qualifying was interrupted twice, as Max Koebolt crashed to No. 4 Pro-Am entered WRT Audi in Q1 and Fabio Onidi put the No. 74 ISR R8 LMS ultra in the wall at Ascari in Q3.

The three-hour at Monza race gets underway at 2:30 p.m. local time.

RESULTS: Qualifying