Final FIA WEC Qualifying now in the bag at a wet Monza circuit earlier today

The final Qualifying and Hyperpole sessions of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship were concluded earlier today as both the LMGT3 and Hypercar fields decided the starting order ahead of tomorrow’s six hours of Monza.

As we know, the Championship’s visit to southern Europe came about by the ongoing tensions within the Middle East where they should have been in Bahrain this time around. Despite differing decisions from both the MotoGP and F1 who have both elected to travel to their usual destinations this around, the FIA WEC took an early assessment to the situation and have stuck to it although many would have preferred the weather conditions in Bahrain to that of Italy at the moment.

 

Running through the three prior Free Practice sessions through anything ranging from damp to torrential rain at the Temple of Speed, all four Heart of Racing Aston Martin or Aston Martin Racing powered entries already knew that their respective championship chances were already beyond their reach.

Qualifying followed the earlier Free Practice 3 session this afternoon with a distinctly damp but drying track met the LMGT3 field for their opening Qualifying session, but the damp and greasiness of the circuit caught out the lead Ferrari for that to spin and nose into the wall bringing out the red flag.

 

Getting going with less than ten minutes of the session remaining, Ian James and his #27 AMR Vantage LMGT3 was comfortably through to Hyperpole with his P5 finish but Gray Newell and his #23 AMR Vantage left it to the very last second before elevating himself up from P12 to P4 to claim another team double in Hyperpole.

Despite two rapid laps from Zacharie Robichon and Eduardo Barrichello within the #27 and #23 cars respectively, they would both fade away slightly during the remainder of the session before both cars swapped order just before eventually claiming a P4 starting position for tomorrows race for the #23 and P6 in class for the #27.

 

Next out were the Hypercars and the two Aston Martin Valkyries from the Heart of Racing team with a track surface now presenting itself in some of its driest form so far this weekend but that (unfortunately) was still not enough for the #007 and #009 cars.

Early laps from Marco Sorensen aboard his #009 car saw him settled comfortably within the top ten whilst Harry Tincknell was having to push his #007 to make it into the top half of the timing screen with the Brit having to avoid a Toyota straying into his path at the end of one faster push lap with still four minutes remaining.

 

Whilst the #007 would remain at the foot of the timing screen, the final minute of running would also see the #009 gradually pumped down the order but whilst Tincknell did haul himself back up to P14 at the end, the #009 car eventually finish P12 to round off another challenging 2026 season within the qualifying session.

Photo credits – DPPI