IMSA Road America: Acura, Porsche, Lexus grab poles

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

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

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