With the fastest time in free practice and the fastest time in the pre-qualifying session, the Ferrari teams dominated the opening day of the Monza round of the 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series. In both sessions it was a driver of the Pro-Am Cup who set the fastest time overall.
Just like in free practice, when there were seven Ferrari 458 Italia in the top 10, the early skirmishes in the 90-minute pre-qualifying session were dominated by the cars bearing the Prancing Horse. Eventually it was Pierre Kaffer in the #66 Black Pearl Racing by Rinaldi Ferrari who set the fastest time in 1’47.583, which was only marginally slower than the time Norbert Siedler set in the #333 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari during free practice. Behind Kaffer, the #52 AF Corse Ferrari set the second fastest time, with the #23 Nissan GT Academy Team RJN GT-R Nismo of Wolfgang Reip in third. With a 1’48.550 the Belgian was also the fastest driver in Pro Cup, ahead of countryman Laurens Vanthoor (#1 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi). Another Audi driver, Julian Westwood in the #24 Team Parker Racing R8 LMS ultra, set the fastest time in Am Cup, clocking the 31st time overall.
During this first day of track action, a lot of interest went to three new GT3 cars. It was the Lamborghini Huracan who impressed the most, with the GRT Grasser Racing Team cars setting the 10th and 11th times respectively, only separated by 12 hundredths of a second. The better of the two new Audi R8 LMS was the Phoenix Racing car, beating the Audi Sport Team WRT machine by exactly 0.015 of a second. In between the two new Audi was the best of the new McLaren 650S, the #54 Attempto Racing machine. All three of those cars just made it into the top-25 overall.
Sunday sees the qualifying for the first race of the 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series at 9am CET. The start of the three hour race will be given at 14:30 CET.