Hunt Takes Pole For Reiter Engineering

A dominant qualifying performance by the #76 Reiter Engineering Ligier of Freddie Hunt saw the British driver take his and the German team’s first Michelin Le Mans Cup pole position ahead of Saturday afternoon’s race at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza.

A red flag due to a panel flying off the #6 ANS Motorsport LMP3 car on the out lap shortened the 15-minute session by a couple of minutes and once qualifying got underway the #29 MV2S Forestier Racing Ligier of Jerome de Sadeleer was the fastest car on the opening lap but Hunt soon moved ahead of the Swiss driver.

The two cars vied for pole position on each lap but the Reiter Engineering Ligier went quickest each time until Hunt set a 1:44.838 to claim the pole. De Sadeleer did improve to close the gap to 0.465 seconds but couldn’t improve further.

The #11 WTM Racing Duqueine of Torsten Kratz will head the second row on this afternoon’s grid with a 1:45.730, just 0.065s ahead of the fourth placed Tony Wells in the #7 Nielsen Racing Ligier, the reigning champion posting a 1:45.795 lap.

GT3:

The GT3 pole position battle went down to final lap when the #46 Ebimotors Porsche of Emanuele Busnelli snatched the top spot on the GT3 grid for this afternoon’s race.

The 2017 GT3 Champion was lying in third behind the #55 and #44 GMB Motorsport Honda NSXs of Kristian Poulsen and Jens Moller, with Poulsen leading his Danish teammate by 0.046s as the last lap of the session was started.

The Honda pair had swapped positions several times in the session, always separate by less than a tenth of a second.

Busnelli set the fastest sector time in sector 1 and then pushed his Porsche hard all the way to the chequered flag, crossing the line in 1:50.044, 0.6 seconds ahead of his two rivals.

Moller also improved on the final lap with a 1:50.645 to move into second place ahead of Poulsen by just 0.069s.

The #99 Bullitt Racing Aston Martin finished the session in fourth place, with Stephen Pattrick 2.5 seconds behind Busnelli and 0.03s ahead of the AF Corse Ferrari of Gino Forgione, the #61 the only Ferrari on the grid after the sister #51 was a no-show.

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