The World Endurance Championship has really started to heat up after Le Mans with a close qualifying session in Monza being claimed by Kamui Kobayashi in the #7 Toyota to give them the upper hand for tomorrow’s race.
This session was anything but the straightforward qualifying session that Toyota used to face in the WEC with Kobayashi setting the Pole position time of 1m.35.358s with still over six and a half minutes to go in the session, and with his teammate Brendan Hartley in the #8 car only +0.102 behind.
Antonio Fucco in the #50 Ferrari would cross the line shortly after Kobayashi and would set a time that was only 0.017s off of Toyota’s fastest and would split the two cars.
Peugeot after finding their feet in Le Mans was right on the pace as well, with the #93 Peugeot only +0.304s off of the Kobayashi, which showed the French Manufacture also were well within a shot of getting Pole Position.
The high-stakes build ultimately lead to nothing as the team’s tyres would drop off with three and a half minutes to go in the session as the grid order would not change.
The final standing saw the #7 Toyota taking the Pole position, followed by the #51 Ferrari and #8 Toyota making up the top three. They would be followed by Vergne in the #93 Peugeot and Alex Lynn in the #2 Cadillac with the top five all with +0.362s of each other.
Harry Tincknell would qualify for the debuting #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 with the British driver qualifying a in respectable 12th position.
Meanwhile, in LMP2, the #41 WRT team needed to close the gap to championship leaders Inter Europol Competition, which is exactly what they did with Robert Kubica setting an absolutely barning storming lap time of 1m:39.354s which claimed the team Pole Position by +0.353s.
The team that would claim second position would be the #28 JOTA driven by Pietro Fittipaldi and then in third by +0.436s would be the #22 United Autosports team with Philip Hanson at the wheel in another need strong performance for their championship.
Championship leaders Inter Europol Competition in their #34 LMP2 car qualified fifth just over half a second back from the pole time meaning they have work to do in the race tomorrow to ensure their strong margin in the championship lead stays intact.
Finally, in GTE AM both ORT by TF and Iron Dames did what they needed to do to try to stop the #33 Corvette from sealing the GTE AM title this weekend.
Sarah Bovy would seal P1 with a time of 1m:47.632s, which would better Ahmad AL Harthy in the #25 ORT by TF Aston Martin by +0.426s in a phenol lap from the Belgian driver.
Ben Keating would experience a rare poor qualifying session, with the #33 Corvette only setting a time good enough for sixth position and 0.887s off of the pace.