The first Ferrari Challenge qualifying run of the day for the Coppa Shell AM grouping took place under mainly appalling weather conditions, with the pouring rain making it a complicated session, which was interrupted to allow the track to dry out.
A few minutes into the session, Race Direction put the red flags out after two Ferrari 296s (one of which the #171 of frontrunner Andrea Levy) ended up against the inside wall, at the entry to Tamburello.
After an interruption of about 15 minutes, qualifying resumed with track conditions better but still tricky, and leaving no margin for error.
Lap after lap, a drier line appeared and the times started to come down. With the chequered flag fast approaching, Eric Cheung (Formula Racing) set the quickest time of the session, the only driver able to lap under 1m56s.
The Canadian’s time of 1m55.728s was almost four-tenths quicker than second-placed Roland Hertner (Gohm Motorsport), who looked certain to take the pole right until the end.
Third place went to Shair, who finished ahead of Coppa Shell AM Europe champion Zois Skrimpias, Jan Sandmann and Henrik Kamstrup. These are the six drivers qualifying for this afternoon’s Superpole, the classification of which will make up the first three rows of the grid for tomorrow’s Ferrari Shell AM World Finals.
Although the top-6 had an international flavour about them, they all came from the Shell AM Europe class, while those from the North America section struggled a bit more in the conditions and were further back in the final standings.
Andreas Koenig (Ghom Motorsport) was the first non-Superpole qualifier in seventh, ahead of Shintaro Akatsu (Ineco), Stephen Earle (Kessel Racing) and Norikazu Shibata (Cornes Osaka), who wrapped up the top-10.
