Mosport IMSA: Taylor, Werner, Karam take poles
Wayne Taylor Racing bounced back from its Watkins Glen disappointment to grab pole position at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, as Porsche and Lexus scored their first poles of the season in GTLM and GTD respectively.
Photo by: David Yowe
The Ricky Taylor-driven Cadillac DPi-V.R set a 1min08.459sec lap on the fifth of nine laps and that time – an average of 129.068mph around the 2.459-mile track – held strong for the remainder of the 15min Prototype segment of qualifying and earned him his third pole of the season.
Emcouragingly for the LMP2 cars in class, Misha Goikhberg was just 0.128sec adrift in the JDC-Miller Motorsports ORECA LM P2 which appeared to continue the momentum of the team’s runner-up finish at Watkins Glen.
The two Tequila Patrón ESM Nissan DPis comprise Row 2 for tomorrow’s race, with Scott Sharp narrowly edging teammate Johannes van Overbeek by less than a tenth of a second. Remarkably, the gap back to Jonathan Bomarito’s Mazda DPi in fifth was even smaller.
In GT Le Mans, Porsche scored the first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole for its 911 RSR, Dirk Werner lapping the course in 1m14.085sec, an average of 119.489mph in the #911 machine. That was a less than a tenth faster than last week’s GTLM winner at The Glen, Bill Auberlen in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-run BMW M6.
Laurens Vanthoor made it two Porsches in the top three, clocking a best time of 1:14.251 (119.222 mph) in the No. 912 Porsche GT Team entry.
Sage Karam took GT Daytona pole in a Lexus RC F GT3 fielded by 3GT Racing, some consolation for the team after watching his teammate Jack Hawksworth shunt in morning practice.
Karam’s 1min16.563sec (115.622 mph) lap in the #14 Lexus he co-drives with Scott Pruett was approximately 0.15sec faster than Andrew Davis’ best in the Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS as Jeff Segal was third in a Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX.
Bryan Sellers was fourth in the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracán ahead of Christina Nielsen in the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3.
Performance Tech Motorsports’ James French claimed the team’s fifth Prototype Challenge pole as the team seeks its sixth straight victory on Sunday.
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