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Antonio Giovinazzi picks up where the No. 51 Ferrari 499P team left off last season, with Hyperpole for the World Endurance Challenge season opener in the 6 Hours of Imola Saturday Morning.
Giovinazzi, after having to abandon a fast lap in Hyperpole qualifying, was able to squeeze in a final attempt as the clock expired. The Italian driver brought the No. 51 to pole by just 0.011 seconds of a margin above the No. 8 Toyota TR010. Giovinazzi placed his best time on five-lap old tires.
I dunno actually, know how he did that," Giovanazzi's teammate Alessandro Pier Guidi said on Giovinazzi's tire management. "But he did an amazing lap, and it put us in a much better situation for tomorrow here in Imola.
He backed up a pole in the 6 hours of Imola, and last year's championship win with his time of 1:30.277.
Last year, with the win for the No. 51 team, Ferrari recorded it's first Hypercar home victory in the program's history as the team started their war path to the championship.
For a moment, it looked like Hirakawa Ryō was going to be able to pull off the upset before Giovinazzi came in for his last flyer, but the Toyota driver was still able to split the factory Ferraris, sending the NO. 50 piloted by Antonio Fuoco back to the second row inside the No. 94 9X8 Peugeot of Malthe Jakobsen. The front two rows ended up within a tenth of a second of each other in this tight opening battle.
After narrowly making it into the top ten for Hypercar Hyperpole, the No. 12 Cadillac piloted by Nick Nato rebounded to a top-five starting spot.
The Toyota sister car of the front-row starter did not have an easy qualifying run, with Nyck de Vries advancing the No. 7 TR010 to sixth on the grid.
The N0 35 Alpine A24, No. 83 yellow Ferrari, and the two BMWs rounded out the top ten.
The second Alpine, the No. 36 piloted by Jules Gouton, was the first to miss out on final qualifying, missing the line by 0.038 seconds off the second BMW's time.
Both Aston Martin Valkyries missed the Hyperpole split by the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA entry of Earl Bamber, a surprise exclusion from the top ten. The No. 93 Peugeot qualified 15th as the last car that ran in the series last year.
With the heaviest cars on the grid, WEC's newest manufacturer, Genesis, failed to make the top ten and compete for Hypercar honors; the No. 17 and No. 19 GMR-001s will start from the back of the class in their first-ever race.
Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.
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