Ferrari starts the WEC 6-hour race in Spa-Francorchamps from pole position. Antonio Fuoco won his second consecutive pole and put the #50 Ferrari 499P (Fuoco, Molina, Nielsen) in first place on the grid in the third race of the season on Saturday (start at 1:00 p.m., live on Sport1 on free TV from 5:00 p.m ).
The Italian Fuoco drove in a league of his own on the traditional 7.004 kilometer long circuit: with his Hyperpole best time of 2:02.600 minutes, he was half a second ahead of the other nine Hypercars that had previously qualified for the 10-minute Hyperpole session .
Spa qualifying: Porsche strong as a collective
Matt Campbell came closest to the Fuoco Ferrari in the #5 Porsche 963 from Penske (Campbell, Christensen, Makowiecki): The Australian needed 2:03.107 minutes for his personal best time and took second place on the grid.
It wasn’t enough for pole position this time, but the LMDh Porsches presented a strong performance: behind the third-placed #2 Cadillac (Bamber, Lynn), three prototypes from Zuffenhausen followed in fourth to sixth place. Julien Andlauer led the Proton customer Porsche with the #99 (Jani, Andlauer) to P4, followed by the #12 JOTA Porsche (Stevens, Ilott) and the second factory Porsche #6 (Estre, Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor).
Mick Schumacher in P12 in the first WEC qualifying
The best-placed factoryToyota, the #8 (Buemi, Hartley, Hirakawa), had to settle for seventh place on the grid.
Alpine managed a positive surprise in qualifying with eighth place on the grid with the #35 A424 (Gounon, Milesi, Chatin) with driver Charles Milesi. However, the Frenchman rolled out in turn 4 a minute and a half before the end, causing yellow flags that prevented the competition from improving their times.
Mick Schumacher took part in his first qualifying in the WEC and achieved twelfth place in the #36 sister Alpine (Mick Schumacher, Lapierre, Vaxiviere). The former Formula 1 driver drove his fastest lap in 2:03.186 minutes – seven tenths behind the leader during the first qualifying round.
The two heavily revised Peugeot 9X8s were also unable to convince in their second qualifying after their Imola debut. The #93 with driver Mikkel Jensen and the sister car with starting number #94 (Loic Duval) had to make do with positions 14 and 16. Imola winner Kamui Kobayashi ended up between the two hypercars from France in the #7 Toyota (Conway, Kobayashi, de Vries).
LMGT3: Serious Manthey accident in women’s trio pole
The qualifying of the LMGT3 class was overshadowed by a serious accident involving Manthey-Porsche driver Alexander Malykhin. The Belarusian, who shares the #92 Porsche 911 GT3 R with Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler, crashed at the start of Hyperpole qualifying. Bronze driver Malykhin lost control of the car at high speed on the way up to the Raidillon corner and hit the right-hand barrier primarily with the left rear section.
The 911, which leads the GT3 overall standings, was thrown back onto the track after the impact. The race management interrupted qualifying for 21 minutes with red flags. While the badly damaged Porsche was being towed away, the tire stacks at the scene of the accident had to be straightened using a forklift. The team initially gave the all-clear (“Alex is okay”), while Malykhin was taken to the trackside medical center for a mandatory check-up. It’s hard to imagine that this car can start the race on Saturday, but possibly a replacement Porsche.
After qualifying resumed with 7:21 minutes remaining, the pink #85 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, shared by the women’s trio consisting of Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting, prevailed. Bronze driver Bovy needed 2:20.755 minutes for the fastest lap and was 0.337 seconds ahead of second-placed Josh Caygill in the #95 United-Autosports-McLaren (Caygill, Pino, Sato).
Motorsport superstar Valentino Rossi was happy about third place on the grid achieved by WRT-BMW team-mate Ahmad Al Harthy. In addition to the #46 BMW M4 GT3 (Al-Harthy, Rossi, Martin), the second Manthey Porsche with starting number #91 (qualifying driver Yasser Shahin, Schuring, Lietz) completed the second starting row.