Giovinassi and Aitken qualify on first row at COTA

WECHyperCar

Sep 6

Hypercar qualifying was very tight, at the Circuit of The Americas this afternoon, with the top 13 cars separated by less than a second. Alpine, Ferrari, Genesis and Toyota got their two hypercars qualified for hyperpole while Aston Martin and Cadillac had one car qualified for the ultimate session.

Hyperpole was even tighter as Giovinassi and Aitken did qualify with the same lap time and only 0.050 seconds covered the top four with Milesi’s Alpine in P3 and Tincknell’s Aston Martin in P4.

A Ferrari in pole again at COTA

Antonio Giovinazzi topped Hyperpole session aboard the #51 Ferrari 499P with a 1:52.445 as did Aitken, but, as he was the first to set the time, the Italian scored pole for tomorrow’s Lone Star Le Mans ahead of the #38 V-Series.R. It is the Prancing Horse’s second pole of the season after the season-opener in Imola, as well as repeating the achievement of 2024, when the Italian driver also took pole. For the Ferrari 499P, this is the third pole position in as many appearances at the Texan circuit.

Ferrari #51 — 📷 © Luc Warnotte at Circuit of The Americas. #51 Ferrari 499P

Antonio Giovinazzi 499P #51: “An important pole position for our championship and for our starting position in the race. It was an intense qualifying session, with constantly changing wind conditions. In the end, in Hyperpole we finished with the same time as the second-placed car, so the strategic aspect of leaving the pits ahead of our direct rival was crucial. Now, however, we need to stay focused because the important points are scored in the race.” Source: Ferrari

Aitken got Cadillac in first row

In one of the closest contested qualifying sessions this season, Jack Aitken took provisional pole after his first lap in Hyperpole and was on the way to improving in his second when Giovinazzi displaced him by a few tenths of a second. The deltas were positive and Aitken was set to make the improvements needed in his second lap to take the No.38’s first pole of the season, only to set an identical lap time to Giovinazzi: a 1:52.445. As the laps matched to a thousandth of a second, the car that set the time first got positioned ahead giving the #38 second on the starting grid for the Lone Star Le Mans.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Circuit of The Americas. #38 JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R

#38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA, Jack Aitken: “I didn’t think it would be that close to pole! Can’t get much closer than that! P2 is a very good position for us to start tomorrow. In these hot conditions it has been tough to get more than one lap out of the tyres, but the team did a great job to fine tune things after FP3 and we’ve put ourselves on the front foot for tomorrow so we’ll see how it goes.” Source: Cadillac Racing

Milesi with Alpine #36 third

Charles Milesi with the #35 Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424 was third with a 1:52.474, only 0.029 second shy from pole.

Aston Martin Valkyrie #007 in second row

Harry Tincknell qualified the #007 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie in fourth (1:52.495) and will start on the second row of the grid alongside the Alpine.