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Australia
Qualifying report

IMSA Road America: Acura, Porsche, Lexus grab poles

Ricky Taylor went three tenths faster than teammate Dane Cameron to lock out the front row for Acura Team Penske for the fourth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Road America.

Pole Winner #7 Acura Team Penske Acura DPi, DPi: Ricky Taylor

Pole Winner #7 Acura Team Penske Acura DPi, DPi: Ricky Taylor

Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Prototype

Taylor’s lap of 1min49.061sec in the #7 Acura gave him his tenth pole position in IMSA competition, and was 0.318sec clear of Cameron’s best effort in the sister Acura ARX-05.

However, the battle wasn’t completely satisfactorily resolved in that the Prototypes lost the last four minutes of their session when Felipe Nasr spun the Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R into a gravel trap having just set his fastest lap of the session.

Nasr's time was fifth-best behind not only the Acuras but also the Mazda RT24-Ps of Harry Tincknell and Tristan Nunez, who were themselves separated by half a second, but the Brazilian lost his best time for causing a red flag.

That promoted Ryan Briscoe of Wayne Taylor Racing to fifth ahead of Joao Barbosa in the JDC-Miller Motorsports Caddy he shares with Sebastien Bourdais.

In LMP2, Patrick Kelly was fastest for PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, a second faster than Henrik Hedman of DragonSpeed.

GT Le Mans

#912 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR - 19: Laurens Vanthoor, Earl Bamber

#912 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR - 19: Laurens Vanthoor, Earl Bamber

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

There are only six cars in GTLM this year but they put on a fascinating qualifying battle at Road America that eventually saw the field covered by 0.715sec. Porsche 911 RSR-19s book-ended the field with Laurens Vanthoor earning pole in the #912 car and Frederic Makowiecki bringing up the rear in the #911 car he shares with Nick Tandy.

Vanthoor’s 2m00.590sec lap was over quarter-second faster Sebring polesitter Jordan Taylor in the #3 Corvette C8.R who in turn had just half a tenth over teammate Oliver Gavin.

Bruno Spengler and Jesse Krohn were only fourth and fifth in the two BMW M8 GTEs, but were only 0.6sec off pole.

GT Daytona

#14 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC-F GT3: Aaron Telitz, Jack Hawksworth

#14 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC-F GT3: Aaron Telitz, Jack Hawksworth

Photo by: Richard Dole / Motorsport Images

Aaron Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo continued the AIM Vasser Sullivan team’s domination of the GT Daytona class since the restart of the IMSA season, despite being docked nine horsepower for this race.

The Lexus RC F GT3s finished 0.787sec apart in favor of local boy Telitz, but Montecalvo was more than two tenths clear of third-placed Corey Fergus in the Compass Racing McLaren 720S GT3.

Robby Foley and Turner Motorsports were arguably the heroes of the hour, bouncing back from a nasty shunt in FP2 caused by brake failure to land fourth place in the repaired BMW M6 GT3.

The third row for tomorrow’s race will comprise Gar Robinson in the Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Cooper MacNeil’s Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3, with the two Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3s locking out Row 4.

Tomorrow’s race begins at 11.05am local (Central) time, 12.05pm ET.

Session results:

Cla Num Driver Class Chassis Time Gap
1 7 Brazil Helio Castroneves
United States Ricky Taylor
DPi Acura DPi 1'49.061
2 6 United States Dane Cameron
Colombia Juan Pablo Montoya
DPi Acura DPi 1'49.379 0.318
3 55 United States Jonathan Bomarito
United Kingdom Harry Tincknell
DPi Mazda DPi 1'49.607 0.546
4 77 United Kingdom Oliver Jarvis
United States Tristan Nunez
DPi Mazda DPi 1'50.120 1.059
5 10 Netherlands Renger van der Zande
Australia Ryan Briscoe
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'50.216 1.155
6 5 Portugal Joao Barbosa
France Sébastien Bourdais
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'50.742 1.681
7 31 Brazil Felipe Nasr
Brazil Pipo Derani
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'51.391 2.330
8 85 United States Chris Miller
France Tristan Vautier
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'51.681 2.620
9 52 Switzerland Simon Trummer
United States Patrick Kelly
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'54.474 5.413
10 81 Sweden Henrik Hedman
United Kingdom Ben Hanley
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'55.427 6.366
11 38 Canada Cameron Cassels
United States James French
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'56.965 7.904
12 18 United States Dwight Merriman
United States Kyle Tilley
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'57.589 8.528
13 912 New Zealand Earl Bamber
Belgium Laurens Vanthoor
GTLM Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2'00.590 11.529
14 3 Spain Antonio Garcia
United States Jordan Taylor
GTLM Corvette C8.R 2'00.854 11.793
15 4 United Kingdom Oliver Gavin
United States Tommy Milner
GTLM Corvette C8.R 2'00.904 11.843
16 25 Canada Bruno Spengler
United States Connor de Phillippi
GTLM BMW M8 GTE 2'01.155 12.094
17 24 Finland Jesse Krohn
United States John Edwards
GTLM BMW M8 GTE 2'01.202 12.141
18 911 United Kingdom Nick Tandy
France Frédéric Makowiecki
GTLM Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2'01.305 12.244
19 14 United Kingdom Jack Hawksworth
United States Aaron Telitz
GTD Lexus RC F GT3 2'06.251 17.190
20 12 United States Frankie Montecalvo
United States Townsend Bell
GTD Lexus RC F GT3 2'07.038 17.977
21 76 United States Corey Fergus
United States Paul Holton
GTD McLaren 720S GT3 2'07.265 18.204
22 96 United States Robby Foley
United States Bill Auberlen
GTD BMW M6 GT3 2'07.361 18.300
23 74 United States Gar Robinson
United States Lawson Aschenbach
GTD Mercedes-AMG GT3 2'07.911 18.850
24 63 United States Cooper MacNeil
Finland Toni Vilander
GTD Ferrari 488 GT3 2'07.924 18.863
25 86 Germany Mario Farnbacher
United States Matt McMurry
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'07.942 18.881
26 57 Portugal Alvaro Parente
Canada Mikhail Goikhberg
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'08.118 19.057
27 16 United States Ryan Hardwick
United States Patrick Long
GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R 2'08.269 19.208
28 22 United States Till Bechtolsheimer
United States Marc Miller
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'08.520 19.459
29 23 Canada Roman De Angelis
United Kingdom Ian James
GTD Aston Martin Vantage GT3 2'08.540 19.479
30 44 United States Andy Lally
United States John Potter
GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3 2'09.822 20.761
31 30 United States Rob Ferriol
United States Spencer Pumpelly
GTD Audi R8 LMS GT3 2'10.474 21.413

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