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Qualifying report

Watkins Glen IMSA: Nissan, Ford and Acura take poles

Extreme Speed Motorsport’s Pipo Derani set a stunning lap around the 3.4-mile 11-turn Watkins Glen International course to chip 0.8sec from the lap record and earn the first non-Cadillac pole of the IMSA season.

#2 Tequila Patrón ESM Nissan DPi: Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel, Luis Felipe Derani

#2 Tequila Patrón ESM Nissan DPi: Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel, Luis Felipe Derani

Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Derani put a 1min34.405sec time together in the Nissan Onroak DPi on the last of his flying laps to beat Olivier Pla in the Ligier by 0.162sec, and the fastest Cadillac – that of Christian Fittipaldi in the #5 Action Express Racing entry – by 0.9sec.

Ricky Taylor, in the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac that has dominated the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship this year, was over a second slower but will line up fourth.

Johannes van Overbeek, driving the second ESM-Nissan was some 1.2sec adrift of his teammate, but fast enough to beat the second AXR Cadillac of Eric Curran, Renger Van Der Zande’s Visit Florida Racing Riley car and Misha Goikhberg in the JDC Miller Oreca.

Tristan Nunez and Joel Miller were ninth and 10th in class in the two Mazda RT-24P DPis.

In GT Le Mans, the two Ford GTs of Joey Hand and Richard Westbrook were first and fourth, sandwiching the BMW M6s of Alexander Sims and Martin Tomczyk, Hand edging Sims by 0.3sec, but the quartet covered by just 0.4sec.

Patrick Pilet’s Porsche 911 RSR was fifth, a further quarter-second down and a mere 0.05sec ahead of Tommy Milner’s Corvette C7.R. Their teammates Laurens Vanthoor and Antonio Garcia will line up directly behind. There are just eight cars in the class.

GT Daytona saw Michael Shank Racing Acura back up its Detroit victory with a pole for Andy Lally, beating the Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 of Lawson Aschenbach by 0.2sec, Jack Hawksworth’s Lexus RC F by almost 0.7sec.

Hawksworth lost time with a spin on a wet curb at Turn 9, but his teammate Sage Karam was more unlucky at the same spot moments later, striking the wall with his #14 Lexus and bringing out the red flag.

And so Jeff Segal made it two Acuras in the first two rows, ahead of a trio of Lamborghini Huracans (Paolo Ruberti, Corey Lewis and Madison Snow) disrupted by Justin Marks in the Turner Motorsports BMW M6.

Performance Tech Racing’s James French headed Prototype Challenge by two seconds, ahead of Don Yount in the BAR1 Motorsports machine.

 

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