FIA WEC Imola: pole position for Fuoco in Ferrari, Porsche first in LMGT3

At Imola it was already Ferrari who did the talking. Antonio Fuoco set a great lap during the big race in his Ferrari 499P, forcing the competition to fall behind by four tenths of a second and more, including his teammates. In LMGT3, Alaksandr Malykhin was clearly the strongest class for the entire field, with a clear position in his Porsche 911 GT3 R. The Belgians did well, with third and fifth place for Maxime Martin and Sarah Bovy.

Photo: Porsche and Ferrari

Surprisingly, all the French brands, Alpine and Peugeot – with Stoffel Vandoorne behind the wheel – fell out of the top 10, as did the birthday boy Dries Vanthoor (BMW), who briefly interrupted qualifying with a slide. Lamborghini, Cadillac and Isotta also did not make it to the top.

Ferrari was dominant in the superpole, with first, second and third place. Antonio Fuoco took the pole, ahead of Robert Schwartzman and Alessandro Pier Guidi. In fourth and fifth place, Porsche saved more than furniture, with Kevin Estre, teammate of Laurens Vanthoor, ahead of Matt Campbell in both Penske Porsche 963s also from René Rast and seventh place for BMW M Team WRT , behind the first from Toyota, the GR010 by Kamui Kobayashi.

Alaksandr Malykhin was the best class in LMGT3

A strong position in the LMGT3 class at Imola was no surprise to the ‘Bronze’ driver of the team that won the championship opener in Qatar, Allaksandr Malykhin in the Manthey PureRaxing Porsche 911 GT3 R. He was no less than seven-tenths of a second faster than Ian James in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR. Interestingly: there was less time difference between number two and number nine of the main cluster in LMGT3 than between Malykhin and James. Team WRT did well with two BMW M4 GT3s taking third and fourth, with Ahmad Al Harthy, teammate of Maxime Martin and Valentino Rossi, ahead of Darren Leung. The top 5 was rounded off by Sarah Bovy in the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan. Tom van Rompuy had to settle for eleventh place in TF Sport’s Corvette Z06 and the Antwerp native therefore did not take part in the superpole.

The race will start tomorrow at 1:00 pm and last six hours.