Rossi Delivers Pole for Debuting Aston Martin in Brazil

Matteo Rossi secured Gulf Racing and Aston Martin’s maiden Pole Position for the first race of the 2018 Rolex GT Super Series season at Interlagos.

In his first race weekend back after a year on the sidelines, the Italian would put in a time that was a tenth of a second clear of second place starter, championship runner-up Fabian Rei. Gulf Racing’s previous highest starting position was a second place start at the 2016 Super GP with Saeed Al Faisal at the helm, but the lightning quick Italian would do one better for the British squad. It would be Rossi’s second pole position in the series, with his first coming at Paul Ricard in 2016 with the Ambrose-Milan squad.

With Rei completing the first row, the second row would be filled out with both Carson Speedworks entries, with Joey Alliot putting down the quicker time in the twenty minute session. Both BMS Scuderia Italia entries will start on the third row for Sunday’s race, with Paul Travesen and Chris Winter concluding a Factory Team lock-out of the top 8 starting positions.

The fifth row would feature the first independent class entries, with Gia Van Dycke and debutante James Douglas starting ninth and tenth respectively. The pair would set times that are a hundredth of a second apart, but were more than half a second off of Matteo Rossi’s pace in the Aston Martin DBR9.

Other notable results from qualifying would include a fifteenth place starting position for Alexi Melvanov and Vitaly Kabirov, which is their best starting position since entering the series at the start of last year, and 2017 Independent front-runners Nathan Scott being mired near the rear of the field.

Qualifying Results – Round of Brazil