Garage 59 made a grand entrance into the FIA World Endurance Championship today (18 April), as rising star – and series rookie – Tom Fleming produced a scintillating performance to top the timesheets in the first Hyperpole shootout of the season at Imola.
For much of the ten-minute session, Fleming looked untouchable as he set purple sector after purple sector, and while the opposition narrowed the gap later on, ultimately, nobody could hold a candle to the McLaren racer, who shares the #10 720S Evo with fellow FIA WEC newcomers Marvin Kirchhöfer and Antares Au.
“We were a bit up-and-down throughout free practice, but Antares put a really good lap in to get us into Hyperpole and then I ‘pulled the pin’, as they say,” reflected Fleming after securing McLaren’s fourth LMGT3 pole, tying British rival Aston Martin for the most in-class. “The car felt really good and I gave it everything I could – we left nothing on the table.
“McLaren and Garage 59 worked extremely hard over the winter and have done an outstanding job to give us the best possible car, and I’m so grateful for that. The paddock here is something different, and it’s really good to see sportscar racing in such a healthy position. To be on pole for my first race is pretty surreal, to say the least!”
The 23-year-old Brit wound up 0.226secs clear of his closest challenger, with Akkodis ASP Team ultimately sewing up second and third positions courtesy of impressive efforts from Hadrien David – another series debutant – in the #78 Lexus RC F and stablemate Clemens Schmid in the sister #87 entry.
The Austrian endured a wild ride through the gravel at Rivazza on his penultimate lap that scuppered a potential pole bid, while the top five was rounded out by Parker Thompson and Sean Gelael in Team WRT’s brace of BMW M4s.
The Hyperpole session was red-flagged in the closing stages, after Salih Yoluç spun the #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette into the Piratella gravel trap. Team-mate Peter Dempsey had earlier set an astonishing pace in the American machine to leave his Bronze-graded rivals trailing on his return to full-time competition for the first time since 2013.
The 6 Hours of Imola will get underway at 13:00 CEST tomorrow (Sunday, 19 April).
Check out the full qualifying times.
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