Daytona IMSA: Castroneves’ Acura beats Mazdas to pole

A mere 0.142sec covered the top four cars, and Castroneves put just 0.032sec between himself and the best of the Mazda RT24-Ps driven by Oliver Jarvis, with Jonathan Bomarito’s Mazda a further 0.032sec behind, and 0.078sec ahead of defending IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Champion Juan Pablo Montoya.

Despite getting little practice this morning due to a flat tire for Renger Van der Zande at 190mph, Wayne Taylor Racing ended up with the fastest Cadillac DPi-V.R thanks to Ryan Briscoe’s best effort. The former IndyCar ace was perhaps surprisingly only 0.671sec off top spot, but was 0.183sec ahead of Gabby Chaves, who is sharing the Action Express Racing Caddy with Pipo Derani, in place of the Covid-19-afflicted Felipe Nasr.

The JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillacs of Joao Barbosa and Chris Miller were seventh and eighth.

Oliver Gavin and Jordan Taylor produced a 1-2 for Corvette Racing’s two-race-old C8.R in GT Le Mans. Gavin was an impressive 0.272sec clear of his teammate who in turn was one-tenth faster than the third place car.

That car was the RLL-run BMW M8 GTE of Jesse Krohn who was just 0.001sec faster than Laurens Vanthoor in the faster of the two Porsche 911 RSRs. Nick Tandy might have gone still faster but ran long in Turn 1 on his final flyer in the #911 Porsche, and will line up sixth, alongside the second BMW of Bruno Spengler.

Corey Fergus took a brilliant GT Daytona-class pole for Compass Racing in the dramatic McLaren 720S GT3, beating Aaron Telitz’s Lexus RC F GT3 by 0.137sec.

Third fastest was the ever-trusty Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 of Robby Foley, who just edged the second Lexus of Frankie Montecalvo and the WeatherTech Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 of Cooper MacNeil.

The two Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3s of Matt McMurry and Misha Goikhberg will line up sixth and seventh.

This evening's 2hr40min race begins at 6.10pm local (Eastern) time.

Qualifying results:

Cla	Num	Driver	Class	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	7	Helio Castroneves Ricky Taylor	DPi	Acura DPi	1'34.390
2	77	Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez	DPi	Mazda DPi	1'34.422	0.032
3	55	Jonathan Bomarito Harry Tincknell	DPi	Mazda DPi	1'34.454	0.064
4	6	Dane Cameron Juan Pablo Montoya	DPi	Acura DPi	1'34.532	0.142
5	10	Renger van der Zande Ryan Briscoe	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'35.061	0.671
6	31	Gabby Chaves Pipo Derani	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'35.244	0.854
7	5	Joao Barbosa Sébastien Bourdais	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'35.737	1.347
8	85	Chris Miller Tristan Vautier	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'35.945	1.555
9	4	Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C8.R	1'42.251	7.861
10	3	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	GTLM	Corvette C8.R	1'42.523	8.133
11	24	Jesse Krohn John Edwards	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'42.628	8.238
12	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	1'42.629	8.239
13	25	Bruno Spengler Connor de Phillippi	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'42.674	8.284
14	911	Nick Tandy Frédéric Makowiecki	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	1'42.754	8.364
15	76	Corey Fergus Paul Holton	GTD	McLaren 720S GT3	1'47.015	12.625
16	14	Jack Hawksworth Aaron Telitz	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	1'47.152	12.762
17	96	Robby Foley Bill Auberlen	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	1'47.468	13.078
18	12	Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	1'47.502	13.112
19	63	Cooper MacNeil Toni Vilander	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	1'47.595	13.205
20	86	Mario Farnbacher Matt McMurry	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'47.779	13.389
21	57	Alvaro Parente Mikhail Goikhberg	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'47.799	13.409
22	16	Ryan Hardwick Patrick Long	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	1'47.839	13.449
23	74	Gar Robinson Lawson Aschenbach	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	1'47.998	13.608
24	44	Andy Lally John Potter	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	1'48.772	14.382
25	22	Till Bechtolsheimer Marc Miller	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'48.795	14.405
26	30	Rob Ferriol Spencer Pumpelly	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	1'49.193	14.803
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