Lime Rock IMSA: Corvette and Aston Martin take poles
Jordan Taylor edged Corvette Racing teammate Tommy Milner to take pole for IMSA’s Northeast Grand Prix, while Roman De Angelis took top spot in GT Daytona, driving Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin Vantage.
#23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3, GTD: Ross Gunn, Roman De Angelis
Art Fleischmann
Seven minutes into the GTLM/ GTD Pro segment of the session, while holding an impressive second place and splitting the two Corvettes, Cooper MacNeil dumped his Porsche 911 RSR off course at Turn 3. While he got the car going again without assistance, he caused a red flag, which meant he lost his two fastest laps, so will start tomorrow behind the two C8.Rs.
Jordan Taylor set a 49.958sec before the stoppage, but although teammate Tommy Milner matched him to the thousandth of a second in sector 2 on his first flyer after the red flag, he couldn’t quite find the hundredths necessary on the other two sectors to nudge the #3 Corvette from the top. They finished the session 0.142sec apart.
In the Bronze-rated driver segment of GT Daytona qualifying that sets the grid order, there was a fine battle for honors between six cars, including the HoR Aston Martin, the two Lexus RC Fs, the Carbahn with Peregrine Racing Audi R8 and the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan.
However, Roman de Angelis parked the Aston Martin in pitlane with eight minutes still to go, having lapped the 1.474-mile course in 51.729sec, at that point 0.045sec faster than the opposition. The team’s confidence was justified – no one could beat that time, and so Madison Snow (PMR Lambo), Frankie Montecalvo (#12 Lexus), Zach Robichon (Pfaff Porsche 911 GT3R) and Robby Foley (Turner Motorsports BMW M6) soon followed suit.
Eventually even Aaron Telitz gave up trying to knock de Angelis off the top, and the last man likely to do so, who kept trying until 90sec from the end, was Richard Heistand in the Peregrine Audi. However, he fell 0.055sec short of P1, and just 0.01 from Telitz in P2.
Montecalvo will start fourth, ahead of Snow, followed by Robichon as top Porsche driver in sixth. Robby Foley was seventh for Turner BMW ahead of Trent Hindman in the Wright Motorsports Porsche, 0.413 from HoR’s pole-winning Aston.
The pros then took to the track at the same time as the GT Le Mans drivers, to settle qualifying points, and it was Jack Hawksworth who earned his fourth P1 of the year in the #14 VSR Lexus. He was a mere 0.048sec ahead of the Compass Racing Acura NSX of Mario Farnbacher, who was a similar distance clear of Franck Perera in the Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan and Laurens Vanthoor in the Pfaff Porsche.
Raceday warm-up begins at 9.05am local (Eastern) time, with the Northeast Grand Prix to begin at 3.10pm.
Cla | Driver | Class | Chassis | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Antonio Garcia
Jordan Taylor |
GTLM | Corvette C8.R | 49.958 | ||
Tommy Milner
Nick Tandy |
GTLM | Corvette C8.R | 50.100 | ||
Cooper MacNeil
Mathieu Jaminet |
GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | |||
Bryan Sellers
Madison Snow |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 51.989 | ||
Zacharie Robichon
Laurens Vanthoor |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 52.023 | ||
Frankie Montecalvo
Zach Veach |
GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 51.937 | ||
Aaron Telitz
Jack Hawksworth |
GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 51.774 | ||
Trent Hindman
Patrick Long |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 52.142 | ||
Mikhail Goikhberg
Franck Perera |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 52.400 | ||
Roman De Angelis
Ross Gunn |
GTD | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 | 51.729 | ||
Richard Heistand
Jeff Westphal |
GTD | Audi R8 LMS GT3 | 51.784 | ||
John Potter
Andy Lally |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 53.396 | ||
Till Bechtolsheimer
Marc Miller |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 52.271 | ||
Jeff Kingsley
Mario Farnbacher |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 52.278 | ||
Rob Ferriol
Katherine Legge |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 53.333 | ||
Bill Auberlen
Robby Foley |
GTD | BMW M6 GT3 | 52.053 | ||
View full results |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments