Pole position for Antonio Giovinazzi in the Ferrari at the 6 Hours of Austin

The hyperpole for the 6-hour race of the World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas (USA) was a real nail-biter. In fact, the top four cars were separated by just 0.050 seconds. With a time of 1:52.445 minutes, Antonio Giovinazzi secured pole position for the legendary Maranello-based marque in his Ferrari.

“This is an important pole position in terms of the championship and also for our starting position in the race,” said Giovinazzi, who shares a 499P with James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi. “It was an intense qualifying session with constantly changing wind conditions. In the end, we set the same time as the second-placed car in the Hyperpole. So the strategic decision to leave the pits before our direct rival was crucial. However, we must now remain focused, as the important points will be awarded in the race.”

As Giovinazzi had already indicated, the car in second place managed to set the same time. This was the Cadillac V-Series.R driven by Earl Bamber, Sébastien Bourdais and Jack Aitken. “I didn’t think the gap to pole position would be so small,” said Aitken, who was at the wheel of the Cadillac during the Hyperpole. “It’s hard to get any closer than that. Second place is a very good starting position for us for the race. In these hot conditions, it was difficult to get more than one fast lap out of the tyres, but the team did an excellent job of fine-tuning the car after the third free practice session. We’ve put ourselves in a good position for tomorrow.”

Third place, 0.029 seconds behind, went to the Alpine A424 driven by António Félix da Costa, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi. Fourth place went to Tom Gamble and Harry Tincknell, who were 0.050 seconds behind in the Aston Martin Valkyrie. This meant that cars from four different makes occupied the top four positions.

The top five was rounded off by the second works Ferrari driven by Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen. In the LMGT3 class, pole position, with a time of 2:05.160 minutes, went to the Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 driven by Jonny Adam, Gray Newell and Eduardo Barrichello.

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