For the second time in three years, Ferrari’s Antonio Giovinazzi secured pole position today (5 September) for Lone Star Le Mans – round five of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign – after prevailing in the closest Hyperpole session in the series’ history.
Since its maiden appearance at Circuit of The Americas two years ago, the Ferrari 499P has never been beaten to the top spot on the starting grid in Texas, and in searingly hot conditions, Giovinazzi ensured the continuation of that dominant run this weekend – by the tiniest possible margin.
When the Italian displaced Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s Jack Aitken to vault to the head of the order behind the wheel of the #51 car he shares with fellow defending world champions James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi, the job looked to be done – but Aitken was not yet finished.
Digging deep, the Briton matched Giovinazzi’s pace-setting effort to literally the thousandth-of-a-second, but with the latter having posted the time first, it is the Ferrari that will line up on pole, with Aitken’s #38 Cadillac V-Series.R alongside. The result marked the second qualifying dead-heat in FIA WEC history – after Shanghai in 2014 – and sets the scene for a sensational scrap for supremacy on Sunday.
“It wasn’t easy, especially in Hyperpole,” acknowledged Giovinazzi. “I didn’t put it all together and it wasn’t the best lap, but thankfully, I had enough to put the car on pole. I was almost back in the pit-lane when my engineer told me [that Aitken had done the same time]. We were lucky there, but you also need also some luck and I think today was our day. Now, we need to finish the job tomorrow!”
Underscoring the fiercely close nature of the ten-minute shootout, Charles Milesi produced a late flyer to climb to third in the #35 Alpine Endurance Team A424 – a mere 0.029s adrift of the benchmark time – with Harry Tincknell securing fourth place for Aston Martin THOR Team in the #007 Valkyrie.
The five hundredths-of-a-second that separated the top four Hypercars – all fielded by different manufacturers – represents the closest gap in the series’ 106 events to-date, beating the record previously set at Imola back in April.
Nicklas Nielsen confirmed Ferrari’s strong form in fifth in the #50 499P ahead of the #36 Alpine piloted by endurance racing rookie, Victor Martins. Genesis got both of its ever-improving GMR-001s through to the top ten for only the second time in its debut campaign in motorsport, while championship-leading Toyota will take the start of the race from eighth and ninth.
Chief title rival BMW, by contrast, has struggled for speed thus far this weekend, and will need to try to fight its way through the field from 11th and 13th.
Check out the full Qualifying and Hyperpole results.
The 2026 edition of Lone Star Le Mans will get underway at 13:00 local time (GMT-5) on Sunday, 6 September.
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