Ferrari secures home pole at WEC season finale

Ferrari will start from pole position in front of hordes of its adoring fans tomorrow in the FIA WEC’s season-closing 6 Hours of Monza, after a stunning performance from Antonio Fuoco in the No. 50 499P.

The Italian, spurred on by packed stands full of Tifosi, clinched his first pole since Spa last season and Ferrari’s fourth straight pole on home soil in Hypercar, with a 1m33.364s in the closing moments.

His hot lap denied Genesis a second consecutive pole position, pushing Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 19 GMR-001 to second on the timing screens during the Hyperpole shootout for the Hypercar category.

“It’s very special to be here. It’s been a tough weekend because the conditions have been so difficult. But everything’s gone really well, so we’re happy. Now we just need to push tomorrow,” Fuoco said.

Cadillac’s No. 38 V-Series.R was also fast throughout the session. Earl Bamber sat on provisional pole for a chunk of time, after making multiple improvements. His best tour was a 1m33.541s, within two tenths of pole.

The No. 51 sister factory 499P was fourth, with the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 completing the top five after an impressive showing from Theo Pourchaire.

It was extremely tight in the top 10, with the top nine cars all setting times within eight tenths of a second. The only car that didn’t manage to do so was the No. 20 WRT BMW.

The No. 35 Alpine Endurance Team A424 failed to progress to Hyperpole for the first time this season, meaning no Hypercar entries have participated in all eight of the top-10 shootouts for pole position. Charles Milesi qualified 11th, 0.074s away from 10th.

The No. 7 Toyota Racing TR010 Hybrid crew of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries will face a monumental task if they are to win the drivers’ championship, after Kobayashi qualified a lowly 16th.

The trio requires a top-two finish to stand a mathematical chance of overhauling the No. 8 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley, which will start one place ahead of it tomorrow in 15th.

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LMGT3, produced another significant result, as the Lexus RC F LMGT3 will start its final FIA WEC race from pole position, after Hadrien David scored pole position aboard the No. 78 Akkodis ASP entry.

The Frenchman went, or stayed, at the top of the times at the completion of all five of his flying laps, with a 1m47.523s on his final lap, his best effort.

Eduardo Barrichello then briefly snatched pole position aboard the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3, setting a 1m47.065s, only to lose this lap to a track limit offence in the middle sector.

David therefore earned his second pole of the season, following on from May’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

Drivers’ championship leader Jonny Edgar piled more pressure on his title rivals by qualifying on the front row in the No. 33 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R. The Briton was rapid, coming up only 0.014s short of David on his final lap.

“We’ve shown this season that qualifying isn’t the most important. It’s always nice to start at the front, though," Edgar said. "The bigger positive for me with qualy being dry shows that we have good pace in the dry. Until now we had no idea where we would be on dry pace relative to everyone else.

"Personally I didn’t think we would be this strong relative to some other cars. That gives me a lot of confidence that we clearly have pretty similar pace to most of the cars and more so with the fact that we are starting second.

“From any position, something can happen at Turn 1. You can’t control it but being in the front is safer than being in the mid-pack.

"We seem to be quite far ahead of the other people that we are racing for the championship so that’s great for us. The car felt really nice. We did a good job of judging how it was in the wet and trying to translate it to what we need in the dry. So that really helped us."

The No. 77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang LMGT3 Evo of Ben Tuck was third, ahead of Barrichello, the No. 87 Lexus and No. 23 Aston Martin.

The No. 88 Ford, No. 61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG LMGT3, No. 91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) LMGT3 and No. 34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette, aboard which Peter Dempsey led the opening stage of qualifying, completed the top 10.

It was a disappointing qualifying session for Team WRT, as neither of its BMW M4 LMGT3 Evos made Hyperpole. Darren Leung missed out on progressing for the first time this season, qualifying 12th in the No. 32 BMW, while the sister No. 69 entry finished 16th after Anthony McIntosh lost his best lap for a track-limit offence.

By missing out on the point for pole position, the No. 69 BMW of McIntosh, Parker Thompson and Dan Harper can no longer win the LMGT3 title.

The Barcelona-winning No. 92 The Bend Manthey Porsche, which sits second in the standings, will start from 11th after Yasser Shahin qualified 0.078s behind James Cottingham’s No. 91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche, whilst the car which finished second in the Spanish round, the No. 10 Garage 59 McLaren LMGT3 Evo, qualified 17th.

The No. 21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari will start from the back of the grid, after François Hériau crashed on his out lap in qualifying. The Frenchman hit the wall at Ascari, heavily damaging the front of his 296 LMGT3 Evo and bringing out the Red Flags.

The 2026 6 Hours of Monza will take place at 11:00 CEST on Sunday.

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