Alessio Rovera, Davide Rigon and Alessandro Pier Guidi have taken pole position for the 6 Hours of Jeddah aboard the #51 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari 296 GT3.
It’s a second consecutive pole in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup for the #51 Ferrari, and the bonus point awarded means Rovera and Pier Guidi are now only two points behind the drivers’ championship leaders ahead of the final race of the season.
“It was very difficult,” said Pier Guidi. “It’s a really challenging track, I kissed the wall but it was okay. The team did an amazing job”.
Franck Perera was quickest in the first of the three qualifying sessions aboard the #163 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, whilst Rigon was fastest in the second session. Tresor Attempto Racing’s Ricardo Feller set the fastest time of the weekend, a 1’59.000”, to end the final session on top, but this wasn’t enough to catch the 1’59.396” average set by the #51 Ferrari crew. It was an incredible display of consistency by the #51, with all three drivers ending their respective sessions in the top three.
Perera, Marco Mapelli and Jordan Pepper will join the Ferrari on the front row of the grid, having set an average lap time of 1’59.577”. Feller, Christopher Haase and Alex Aka will start from third in the #99 Audi.
Schumacher CLRT’s #22 Porsche qualified fourth, ahead of the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini and the #48 Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER entry. Garage 59’s #188 McLaren will share the fourth row of the grid with the #2 GetSpeed Mercedes, which has seen its slim shot at the drivers’ title disappear after missing out on the point for pole.
Saintéloc Racing’s #26 Audi of Ezequiel Pérez Companc, Kobe Pauwels and Lucas Légeret qualified ninth overall and on Silver Cup pole position, ahead of the Gold Cup-leading #111 CSA Racing Audi of Simon Gachet, Arthur Rougier and Hugo Cook. CSA Racing are, impressively, the fifth different Gold Cup pole sitters across the five-round Endurance Cup season.
Bronze Cup pole position went to Dustin Blattner, Loek Hartog and Dennis Marschall in the #97 Rutronik Racing Porsche, which qualified 17th overall.
It was a challenging session for the championship-leading #007 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin, which qualified 18th and was never a factor near the top of the times. Mattia Drudi, Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim look set to have a difficult race ahead, with their three closest challengers in the championship starting in the first three positions. If any of the #007 Aston Martin, #51 Ferrari or #99 Audi win the race, they will win the title no matter where the others finish.
Also struggling were Team WRT, with the teams’ pair of PRO class M4 GT3s ending up on the twelfth row of the grid, whilst Walkenhorst Motorsport’s #34 Vantage AMR GT3 Evo will start from the back of the field after failing to set a time in the second session. This was the only entry not to set a representative time in all three sessions, as Qualifying ran without any major incidents or Red Flag interruptions.
The final race of the season begins at 17:00 AST (14:00 UTC), and can be viewed on the GTWorld YouTube Channel.
