Valentino Rossi scored his first-ever ROWE Pole Position Award in today's opening GT World Challenge powered by AWS qualifying at Misano.
The Italian ace took full advantage of a very fast BMW from Team WRT to set a 1m32.154s during the first 10 minutes of the split session, which was contested by the Pro and Gold Cup cars.
This left the Silver and Bronze entrants to run in the second 10 minutes; and, with some very fast drivers among them, Rossi faced an anxious wait to see if he could hold on to P1.
His sternest challenge came from an unlikely source as young Italian driver Andrea Frassineti got within 0.099s aboard the #66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi.
This gave the youngster Silver Cup pole and a highly impressive P2 overall – but it was not quite enough to depose The Doctor. Rossi thus took his maiden GT World Challenge pole and Team WRT's first in two years.
Championship leader and CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa winner Ricardo Feller was third in the #80 Lionspeed GP Porsche, followed by the #32 Team WRT BMW of Charles Weerts, and Lucas Auer in the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG.
Fabian Schiller was sixth overall and secured Bronze Cup pole in the #12 GetSpeed Team Dubai Mercedes-AMG, beating fellow AMG drivers Dani Juncadella (Verstappen Racing) and Marvin Dienst (Winward Racing). Dylan Pereira (#99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi) was ninth overall and took Gold Cup pole.
The first part of the session ran without interruption, but the second was almost immediately red flagged following contact between two Ferraris.
Dennis Marschall was exiting in the pits in the #74 Kessel Racing machine when he hit Felix Hirsiger (#71 AF Corse) and pirouetted into the gravel. Marschall was able to drive out again, but not before the session had been halted. Hirsiger was able to continue with cosmetic damage to the door of his 296.
The first race of the weekend gets underway at 20:30 on Saturday evening and can be watched live on the GT World YouTube channel.
> Results: Qualifying 1