MONZA, Italy — HRT Ford Racing tore up the script at the Temple of Speed during Sunday morning’s high-stakes qualifying shootout, securing a historic first-ever outright pole position for the Ford Mustang GT3 Evo in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. The roaring American V8 dictated the pace across the aggregated timing sheets, signaling a massive milestone for the manufacturer’s global sports car program on one of motorsport’s most iconic battlegrounds.
The #64 machine, shared by Arjun Maini, Fabio Scherer, and Thomas Drouet, operated on a level of frightening consistency. Maini set the tone by lighting up the timing screens to go fastest overall in the opening Q1 segment, while his co-drivers both backed it up with second-place finishes in their respective sessions to land an unassailable 1:45.503 average. Adding to a magical morning for the HRT camp, the sister #65 Silver Cup entry of Finn Wiebelhaus, Eduardo Coseteng, and Maxime Oosten claimed a comfortable class pole and locked down an amazing third overall on the provisional charts.
Penalty Heartbreak for Verstappen Racing Shuffles Front Row
The ultimate layout of the grid took a dramatic twist before the engines even cooled, following a costly penalty issued to the absolute fastest challengers. The #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing entry—crewed by Dani Juncadella, Chris Lulham, and Jules Gounon—had used a spectacular late flyer from Gounon to slash the Ford’s theoretical pole margin down to just 0.152 seconds.
However, the 2 Seas Motorsport-run car was carrying a heavy technical anchor into the session: a 5-place grid penalty picked up during Free Practice 1 after Lulham was penalized for overtaking under yellow flags. The penalty drops the star-studded Verstappen Racing entry down to seventh, promoting the Gold Cup-topping #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi to the front row alongside the leading Ford.
Porsche Crawls Forward as WRT #46 Hunts for Progress
The traditional powerhouses of the Endurance Cup grid experienced a far more methodical and laborious path toward the front. The #80 Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R, spearheaded by Ricardo Feller, Thomas Preining, and Bastian Buus, looked heavily bogged down early in the session and languished well outside the top ten in combined times. It took a masterful, final-stint rescue mission from the Dane to go fifth-fastest in Q3, clawing the Porsche up the order to ultimately inherit fourth overall on the grid following the shuffling of penalties.
Meanwhile, the legendary #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo—featuring Valentino Rossi alongside BMW factory aces Dan Harper and Max Hesse—focused heavily on establishing a steady progression through the technical mid-sectors. After a bruising previous outing at Brands Hatch where post-race penalties wrecked their score sheet, the crew targeted an incident-free qualifying execution, putting themselves well within striking distance of the top ten to maximize their long-run race setup for the 3-hour endurance battle ahead.
Italian Pride Anchored by Leading Ferrari Attack
As the paddock gears up for the grueling 3-hour race later today, the hometown fans will have plenty of local machinery to rally behind. Leading the charge for Maranello is the pro-class #51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, shared by Alessio Rovera, Nicklas Nielsen, and Tommaso Mosca. The trio methodically managed their tyre strategy to lock themselves into a competitive third row, starting alongside the #48 Winward Mercedes-AMG.
With the field exceptionally compressed and the long Monza straights bound to provide massive slipstreaming slipstreams, the tactical dynamic between the raw top-end speed of the pole-sitting Mustangs and the high-downforce efficiency of the chasing European machinery promises an absolute classic when the green flag drops.