Qualifying report
IMSA Sebring
Sebring 12H: Bourdais’ record lap earns pole in Ganassi Cadillac
Sebastien Bourdais broke the DPi lap record to land pole for tomorrow’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, heading a Cadillac lockout of the front row.
David Malsher-Lopez
Edited: Mar 19, 2022, 5:13 AM
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Bourdais, who won the race last year racing the JDC Miller MotorSports Cadillac, delivered a 1min45.166 in Chip Ganassi Racing’s #01 Cadillac DPi-V.R to eclipse the existing lap record by over two-tenths of a second, but shade his nearest opposition by only 0.026sec. Impressively, the top four cars were under the lap record, and covered by only 0.157sec.
Bourdais took only two laps to warm up his tires and deliver his knockout blow to the opposition, ensuring the car he shares full-time with Renger van der Zande and, this weekend, former IndyCar rival Ryan Hunter-Reay, will lead the field to the green in the 70th Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Pipo Derani in the Action Express Racing #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac, kept whittling away at Bourdais’ margin, until he was just two and a half hundredths slower. Although he fell short, he still managed to get ahead of a very brave effort by Ricky Taylor in the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05, which shaded Alex Lynn’s best effort in the second Ganassi Caddy by a mere couple of hundredths.
Mike Rockenfeller was 0.4sec off pole in the second AXR entry, the Ally Cadillac, while Tom Blomqvist was a full second down in the Meyer Shank Racing Acura.
Tristan Vautier, driving the JDC Miller MotorSports Cadillac spun out of Turn 1 with 10 minutes remaining in the LMP1/LMP2 quali session, dropping his right-side wheels off the course on corner exit, which sent the car back to the inside where the Mustang Sampling car struck the Armco barrier on the inside. The impact wiped off the splitter and ended the session early for the defending race winning team, consigning it to seventh on the grid.
Ben Keating did his traditional fine job to claim pole in LMP2 in the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports entry, with Henrik Hedman second for DragonSpeed but six-tenths slower. He was nonetheless a tenth up on the second PR1 Mathiasen car, driven by Steven Thomas, while Dwight Merriman completed the top four in the Era Motorsport entry.
A genuinely exciting battle for LMP3 pole emerged as series newcomer Harry Gottsacker’s Muehlner Motorsports Duqueine battled with Gar Robinson in the Riley Motorsports Ligier and the similar car of Andretti Autosport, wheeled by Jarett Andretti.
The latter seemed to have put the matter beyond doubt with a 1min57.234, at which point he was 0.376sec ahead of the field, but Robinson fell less than a tenth short with his penultimate lap and wasn’t about to give up. He rode his bucking Ligier past the checkered flag with a 1min57.048sec, and although Andretti did his utmost on his final lap, he fell just 0.035sec short.
Their battle pulled them over half a second clear of Gottsacker who nonetheless pipped FastMD racing’s Max Hanratty to third, while Dan Goldburg of Performance Tech Motorsports and George Kurtz of CORE autosport was sixth.
Combined GT class qualifying was brought to a halt when John Potter’s Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage ground to a halt at Turn 10, causing a red flag. Six cars – the #66, #28, #21, #47, #42 and #97 – had to serve a drive-through penalty for lining up at pit exit to wait for the session to resume, which is not allowed under IMSA’s rules. When the session resumed with barely more than five minutes to go, that sextet, after serving the penalty, would have just time to get their tires up to temp and set one flying lap.
This was irrelevant to Daniel Serra, who delivered a 1min49.414sec for Risi Competizione to put the #62 Ferrari 488 at the top of the GTD Pro times, a mere 0.017sec faster than Mirko Bortolotti in the TR3 Racing Lamborghini Huracan.
Next up was Zacharie Robichon, who by being third overall in the Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R, was fastest of the GTD class, just 0.025sec ahead of Robbie Foley in the Turner Motorsports BMW M4.
Russell Ward, who suffered a shunt yesterday, rebounded in impressive style to take third in GTD driving the Winward Mercedes AMG GT3, while Madison Snow was fourth in GTD, sixth overall, in Paul Miller Racing’s first event with a BMW M4.
Behind him in fifth was the Cetilar Racing Ferrari 488, Giorgio Sernagiotto proving fastest of the cars that had had to serve a drive-through penalty.
Third in GTD Pro, but eighth overall was Antonio Garcia in the Corvette C8.R, which IMSA Radio revealed has received a 20hp boost, as IMSA fettles the Balance of Performance for a car that is only 1 race into its evolution as a GT3 machine.
Alex Riberas did his usual stout job in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage to clock fourth best time in GTD Pro, ahead of Matt Campbell’s Pfaff Porsche, Aaron Telitz in the #14 Lexus RC F, and Nick Yelloly in the fastest of the works BMW M4s.
Cla Num Driver Class Chassis Time Gap 1 01 Renger van der Zande
Sébastien Bourdais
Ryan Hunter-Reay
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'45.166 2 31 Pipo Derani
Tristan Nunez
Mike Conway
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'45.192 0.026 3 10 Ricky Taylor
Filipe Albuquerque
Will Stevens
DPi Acura DPi 1'45.301 0.135 4 02 Earl Bamber
Alex Lynn
Neel Jani
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'45.323 0.157 5 48 Mike Rockenfeller
Kamui Kobayashi
Jose Maria Lopez
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'45.576 0.410 6 60 Oliver Jarvis
Tom Blomqvist
Stoffel Vandoorne
DPi Acura DPi 1'46.249 1.083 7 52 Ben Keating
Mikkel Jensen
Scott Huffaker
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'49.954 4.788 8 81 Henrik Hedman
Juan Pablo Montoya
Sebastian Montoya
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'50.592 5.426 9 11 Steven Thomas
Josh Pierson
Jonathan Bomarito
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'50.732 5.566 10 5 Tristan Vautier
Richard Westbrook
Loic Duval
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'51.338 6.172 11 18 Dwight Merriman
Kyle Tilley
Ryan Dalziel
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'51.584 6.418 12 29 Frits van Eerd
Giedo van der Garde
Dylan Murry
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'51.679 6.513 13 8 John Farano
Louis Deletraz
Rui Andrade
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'51.890 6.724 14 20 Dennis Andersen
Anders Fjordbach
Fabio Scherer
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'52.507 7.341 15 22 Jim McGuire
Guy Smith
Duncan Tappy
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'53.209 8.043 16 74 Gar Robinson
Felipe Fraga
Kay van Berlo
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'57.048 11.882 17 36 Jarett Andretti
Josh Burdon
Gabby Chaves
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'57.083 11.917 18 6 Efrin Castro
Moritz Kranz
Ugo De
LMP3 Duqueine D08 1'57.610 12.444 19 40 Max Hanratty
Todd Archer
James Vance
LMP3 Duqueine D08 1'57.719 12.553 20 38 Daniel Goldburg
Rasmus Lindh
Cameron Shields
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'58.087 12.921 21 54 Jon Bennett
Colin Braun
George Kurtz
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'58.717 13.551 22 62 Daniel Serra
Davide Rigon
Eddie Cheever III
GTD PRO Ferrari 488 GT3 1'59.414 14.248 23 63 Marco Mapelli
Andrea Caldarelli
Mirko Bortolotti
GTD PRO Lamborghini Huracan GT3 1'59.431 14.265 24 16 Ryan Hardwick
Zacharie Robichon
Jan Heylen
GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R 1'59.763 14.597 25 33 Joao Barbosa
Malthe Jakobsen
Lance Willsey
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'59.781 14.615 26 96 Robby Foley
Bill Auberlen
Michael Dinan
GTD BMW M4 GT3 1'59.788 14.622 27 57 Russell Ward
Philip Ellis
Marvin Dienst
GTD Mercedes-AMG GT3 1'59.848 14.682 28 1 Bryan Sellers
Madison Snow
Erik Johansson
GTD BMW M4 GT3 1'59.898 14.732 29 47 Roberto Lacorte
Giorgio Sernagiotto
Antonio Fuoco
GTD Ferrari 488 GT3 1'59.917 14.751 30 3 Antonio Garcia
Jordan Taylor
Nick Catsburg
GTD PRO Corvette C8.R GTD 1'59.927 14.761 31 23 Ross Gunn
Alex Riberas
Maxime Martin
GTD PRO Aston Martin Vantage GT3 1'59.957 14.791 32 9 Matt Campbell
Mathieu Jaminet
Felipe Nasr
GTD PRO Porsche 911 GT3 R 1'59.982 14.816 33 14 Jack Hawksworth
Ben Barnicoat
Aaron Telitz
GTD PRO Lexus RC F GT3 2'00.002 14.836 34 24 Philipp Eng
Marco Wittmann
Nick Yelloly
GTD PRO BMW M4 GT3 2'00.031 14.865 35 32 Mike Skeen
Stevan McAleer
Daniel Juncadella
GTD Mercedes-AMG GT3 2'00.176 15.010 36 21 Simon Mann
Luis Perez Companc
Toni Vilander
GTD Ferrari 488 GT3 2'00.203 15.037 37 30 Ari Balogh
Garett Grist
Dakota Dickerson
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 2'00.230 15.064 38 25 Connor de Phillippi
John Edwards
Augusto Farfus
GTD PRO BMW M4 GT3 2'00.460 15.294 39 13 Orey Fidani
Kuno Wittmer
Lars Kern
LMP3 Duqueine D08 2'00.487 15.321 40 93 Ashton Harrison-Henry
Kyle Marcelli
Tom Long
GTD PRO Acura NSX GT3 2'00.605 15.439 41 7 Mark Kvamme
Anthony Mantella
LMP3 Duqueine D08 2'00.624 15.458 42 28 Michael de Quesada
Daniel Morad
Maximillian Goetz
GTD Mercedes-AMG GT3 2'00.919 15.753 43 79 Cooper MacNeil
Julien Andlauer
Alessio Picariello
GTD PRO Porsche 911 GT3 R 2'00.951 15.785 44 59 Jon Miller
Patrick Gallagher
Paul Holton
GTD McLaren 720S GT3 2'01.287 16.121 45 66 Kyffin Simpson
Till Bechtolsheimer
Mario Farnbacher
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'01.352 16.186 46 12 Frankie Montecalvo
Scott Andrews
Richard Heistand
GTD Lexus RC F GT3 2'01.536 16.370 47 97 Cooper MacNeil
Jules Gounon
Maro Engel
GTD PRO Mercedes-AMG GT3 2'01.947 16.781 48 39 Robert Megennis
Corey Lewis
Jeff Westphal
GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3 2'01.973 16.807 49 27 Roman De Angelis
Ian James
Tom Gamble
GTD Aston Martin Vantage GT3 2'02.271 17.105 50 42 Don Yount
Jaden Conwright
Mateo Llarena
GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3 2'05.834 20.668 51 44 John Potter
Andy Lally
Spencer Pumpelly
GTD Aston Martin Vantage GT3 0.000 52 70 Brendan Iribe
Ollie Millroy
Jordan Lee Pepper
GTD McLaren 720S GT3 0.000 53 99 Rob Ferriol
Katherine Legge
Stefan Wilson
GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R 0.000 View full results
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