Alessandro Pier Guidi proved to be fastest in the qualifying for the TM Performance 3 Hours of Monza. In the dying seconds of the session he put the #50 Spirit of Race Ferrari on pole position, edging in front of Norbert Siedler (#19 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini) and Davide Rigon (#72 SMP Racing Ferrari). Jonny Adam was fastest of the Pro-Am drivers with the #97 Oman Racing Team with TF Sport Aston Martin, and Rino Mastronardi drove the #488 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari to pole in the Am Cup
Never before has qualifying for a Blancpain GT Series round been so close: at the end of Q3 no fewer than 32 cars were separated by less than a second. As usual, those last 15 minutes of qualifying were key for the determination of this afternoon’s starting grid. For quite a while Davide Rigon looked set to celebrate his comeback in the series with pole position. At the waving of the chequered flag the #72 SMP Racing Ferrari was still heading the classification, but with a last minute effort Ale Pier Guidi edged in front, beating Rigon’s time by a mere 0.087 of a second. And Rigon even dropped off the front row when Norbert Siedler drove the #19 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini to second on the grid, squeezing in between the two Ferrari cars.
Qualifying for the Pro-Am Cup grid positions was close as well, even though Jonny Adam and the #97 Oman Racing Team with TF Sport Aston Martin were the only Pro-Am Cup competitors to qualify in the top-12 overall. Adam proved to be some two tenths quicker than the #53 Spirit of Race Ferrari of Andrea Bertolini and the #26 Sainteloc Racing Audi of Christopher Haase. With nine cars inside the 32 that were within the same second, it is clear that the fight for Pro-Am honours will be tough as well.
Also in those 32 was the #488 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari of Rino Mastronardi, who managed to put eight cars in between himself and the next car in the Am Cup, the #888 Kessel Racing Ferrari of David Perel.
The start of the TM Performance 3 Hours of Monza will be given at 14.45 CEST, and the first endurance race of the 2017 Blancpain GT Series will be streamed live on our website.