Wec Imola, qualifying: pole for Fuoco, Ferrari hat-trick. Valentino Rossi third in GT3

After a first stage of the 2024 WEC in the hands of Porsche, the ones that shone on the Imola track were the Ferrari: Antonio Fuoco on the red #50 that he shares with Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen he took pole position in 1’29″466, preceding the yellow #83 driven by Robert Shwartzman and shared with Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye; #51 by Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi ranked third at 487 thousandths. An expected hat-trick, given the results of the three free practice sessions which always saw a Prancing Horse car in the lead. Fourth place for Porsche #6 of Kevin Estre, leader of the World Championship, ahead of the twin #5 of Matt Campbell, while the Toyota by Kobayashi and Hartley close sixth and eighth. In the GT3 class, worth mentioning is third place in qualifying for the BMW #46 by Al Harthy-Rossi-Martin.

Always in front

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The qualifying format introduced this year involves two consecutive sessions, with the best ten of the first 12-minute session going through and competing in the Hyperpole to determine the first five rows. Antonio Fuoco confirmed himself as an absolute specialist on the flying lap, setting the fastest lap in both situations and inflicting over four tenths on his team mates Shwartzman and Pier Guidi. “The fastest lap was special for our fans, who they represent a further boost for our performance. Three Ferraris in the first three places demonstrate the great work we have done”, declared the poleman the gap to the first Porsche is instead 635 thousandths, while the best Toyota pays 944. The balance of the championship was confirmed by the gaps, which saw the ten cars entering Hyperpole closed in just over a second. Among these, noteworthy is the good performance from the BMW #20 of René Rast, seventh on the grid, while they remained outside the top 10 Cadillac (12th), both new Peugeot (14th and 15th), the Lamborghinis SC63 (16th), two o’clock Alpine (17th and 18th) e Isotta Fraschinilast.

Rossi starts third in GT3

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After the dominance shown in Qatar, where only the pole position was missing, the Porsche #92 by Manthey Pure Rxcing made up for it in Imola by conquering the best time with an advantage of 693 thousandths over the second thanks to the great work of Alex Malykhin. The Belarusian driver, who races under a St. Kitts and Nevis licence, preceded theAston Martin #27 by Ian James and the BMW #46 by Ahmad Al-Harthy, which the Omani also shares with Valentino Rossi. Decent performance for the two Ferrari 296 GT3 by Vista AF Corsewho obtained theeighth and ninth time with François Heriau and Thomas Flohr.

The rankings

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The race starts at 1pm on Sunday and lasts six hours. Below are the top ten classified in the Hypercar qualification:

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1. Ferrari #50 (Fire) 1’29″466
2. Ferrari #83 (Shwartzman) +0″419
3. Ferrari #51 (Pier Guidi) +0″487
4. Porsche #6 (Estre) +0″635
5. Porsche #5 (Campbell) +0″919
6. Toyota #7 (Kobayashi) +0″944
7. BMW #20 (Rast) +1″134
8. Toyota #8 (Hartley) +1″186
9. Porsche Jota #12 (Ilott) +1″190
10. Porsche Proton #99 (Andlauer) +1″226