Antonio Fuoco thrilled the ever-enthusiastic tifosi that made the trip to the Autodromo Nazionale Monza today (7 November), by clinching pole position for Ferrari ahead of tomorrow’s final round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship.
As had been the case back at the beginning of the campaign at Imola, the Ferrari 499P was the car to beat on home soil at Monza, and on this occasion, it was Fuoco who made best use of it. The Italian comfortably topped the timesheets in the opening part of the two-stage qualifying session, before seeing off his rivals once again in the 10-minute Hyperpole shootout en route to a fifth outright pole in FIA WEC and first in 18 months.
The result represented the 499P’s 11th pole in the series – and fourth in a row in Italy, having similarly snared the prime starting spot at Imola for three seasons in succession. On Sunday, Fuoco together with #50 team-mates Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina will be aiming to convert that advantage into a second victory of what has predominantly been a challenging title defence for the Prancing Horse.
“Coming to Italy is always special for us and to be on pole here at Monza, as an Italian driver with Ferrari, is really emotional,” the 30-year-old reflected. “It was quite tricky because with practice having all been wet, we didn’t have chance to do any prior dry-weather running, but I really like these conditions when you just have to go and send it and try to put everything together. I think today, we did that really well.
“I want to thank the team because in situations like this, we need to trust them on the set-up and what they give us. I’m pretty sure tomorrow in the grandstands, we will have a lot of support, and the Italian fans bring so much passion. We know it’s going to be a long race, so we need to keep cool, keep calm and continue to do our best.”
If Fuoco was the indisputable class of the field in the first part of the session, he had it far from his own way in Hyperpole, when the former 24 Hours of Le Mans winner faced a number of threats to his supremacy and had to dig deep to come out on top.
Continuing Genesis’ stellar Spanish form from three weeks ago, Mathieu Jaminet grabbed a second consecutive front row berth for the Korean motorsport newcomer behind the wheel of the #19 entry, just 0.096s adrift of the pace-setting Ferrari, although Barcelona hero Mathys Jaubert failed to make the top ten in the sister GMR-001.
Row two will be shared by the #38 Cadillac V-Series.R and #51 Ferrari courtesy of strong laps from Earl Bamber and Antonio Giovinazzi, with the top five rounded out by Théo Pourchaire, who produced a superb effort in the #94 Peugeot 9X8 in its final event in its current iteration, backed up by #93 stablemate Nick Cassidy in ninth.
Further down the order, neither of the title-chasing Toyota TR010 Hybrids advanced beyond the initial phase of the session, with Ryō Hirakawa and countryman Kamui Kobayashi languishing down in 15th and 16th positions respectively, ahead of only the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8, currently best-of-the-rest in the championship standings.
David on LMGT3 pole for Lexus swansong
The Lexus RC F will make its final FIA World Endurance Championship start this weekend (6-8 November), and it will do so from pole position, following a stellar performance by Hadrien David and Akkodis ASP Team on a damp-but-drying track surface today at Monza.
The Lexus has been a front-running contender in FIA WEC’s LMGT3 category over the past two seasons, with David previously securing the top spot on the class starting grid at Spa-Francorchamps earlier this year. The rising French star gave another demonstration of his palpable potential by mastering the mixed conditions to secure a second career pole – the fourth for the Japanese marque.
In company with #78 team-mates Tom Van Rompuy and Esteban Masson, he will now be eager to translate that into the top step on the podium, with Akkodis’ race day efforts having repeatedly been hampered by ill-fortune in 2026 – the runner-up spoils in the 24 Hours of Le Mans the squad’s solitary silverware to-date.
“I’m very happy,” enthused 22-year-old David. “We’ve struggled a lot over the past few races, so this is a good day for the team. We were expecting to be fast because we know the Lexus is strong in these conditions, when it’s very cold and we have big straights – and it felt great!
“Having not had any session before that in the dry, it wasn’t easy to set the car up, but the team did a great job and I need to give them a lot of credit because I couldn’t do this without them. We know our weak point tomorrow will be tyre wear, but fortunately, this track is usually quite low in terms of degradation so hopefully we can finish the season on a high.”
Pole looked to have gone the way of Heart of Racing Team’s Eduardo Barrichello – a driver with an unrivalled Hyperpole record in LMGT3 over the last two years – with the Brazilian Aston Martin driver stopping the clocks almost half-a-second quicker than anybody else, only to immediately lose the lap due to a track limits transgression.
That elevated championship leader Jonny Edgar to the front row of the grid, as the #33 TF Sport Corvette star bids to become FIA WEC’s first solo champion in more than a decade. The Briton ended up a mere 0.014s shy of David – the second-narrowest gap in the history of the production-based division.
Ben Tuck put the best-placed Proton Competition Ford Mustang third on the grid – four spots ahead of home hero Giammarco Levorato in the sister car – with Barrichello ultimately classified fourth. The second Lexus and Aston Martin entries completed the top six, with the #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette and #92 The Bend Manthey Porsche – the only two cars that can still deny the #33 Corvette the crown – respectively 10th and 11th.
The #69 Team WRT BMW – the sole other competitor capable of challenging for championship honours coming into the weekend – exited the title chase after qualifying just 16th.
The 6 Hours of Monza will begin at 11:00 local time (CET) tomorrow (Sunday, 8 November).
