Quaife-Hobbs takes first AutoGP World Series pole

It was Adrian Quaife-Hobbs who clinched the first pole position of the Auto GP World Series. On the Monza track the british young gun emerged as the quickest after an hard-fought Qualifying: after he managed to stay among the top-runners for the whole session, the SuperNova driver got his perfect lap with just 6’ to go, posting a 1’36”603 that nobody could match. Sergey Sirotkin tried his best to pip Quaife-Hobbs until the very last lap, but his final laptime was just 0.04 shy of pole, putting him on first row besides Adrian.

Second row for Sergio Campana, just one tenth adrift, and Pål Varhaug: the Norwegian driver and the Virtuosi UK staff kept the improving momentum they had already showed in FP2 and so Pål stopped the clocks on a 1’36”941 that allowed him to keep Chris Van der Drift at bay. After using the first two sessions to get acquainted with the car, the Kiwi driver used all his talent and experience to bring the Manor MP Motorsport car in fifth place, sharing third row with sixth placed Victor Guerin, with the #11 SuperNova entry.

Italian Antonio Spavone confirmed his improved feeling with both the car and the track with a 1’37”553 that gave him P8 ahead of Facundo Ragalia, again the quickest among the Campos Racing drivers. Closing the top ten were Giacomo Ricci and Daniel de Jong.

Adrian Quaife-Hobbs: “Getting pole-position is always a great feeling, especially when you work so hard with the team in order to get what you’re aiming for. Since the morning we really worked on the tiniest details to make the car as performing as possible, and looking at how much we improved from the first practice, I’d say that it worked quite well. I still had a little gearbox glitch that wasn’t helping me at all with the upshifts, but we have the time to fix it and get a perfect car for tomorrow’s race”.

Monza, Qualifying

1 Adrian QUAIFE-HOBBS Super Nova International 1:36.603 2 Sergey SIROTKIN Euronova Racing 1:36.644 3 Sergio CAMPANA MLR 71 1:36.748 4 Pal VARHAUG Virtuosi UK 1:36.941 5 Chris VAN DER DRIFT Manor MP Motorsport 1:37.286 6 Victor GUERIN Super Nova International 1:37.349 7 Antonio SPAVONE Euronova Racing 1:37.553 8 Facu REGALIA Campos Racing 1:37.581 9 Giacomo RICCI Zele Racing 1:37.766 10 Daniel DE JONG Manor MP Motorsport 1:37.862 11 Adderly FONG Ombra Racing 1:38.076 12 Giuseppe CIPRIANI Campos Racing 1:38.132 13 Max SNEGIREV Campos Racing 1:38.699 14 Matteo BERETTA Virtuosi UK 1:39.271 15 Michele LA ROSA MLR 71 1:39.721 16 Giancarlo SERENELLI Ombra Racing 1:39.805


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