Daytona IMSA: Castroneves’ Acura beats Mazdas to pole
Helio Castroneves turned the best lap of Daytona to earn Acura Team Penske pole for this evening’s IMSA WeatherTech 240 in a fantastically close battle for top honors between the Acura ARX-05s and Mazda RT24-Ps.
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 |
| View full results | ||||||
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