IMSA VIR: Makowiecki’s Porsche and Fergus’ McLaren take poles

The pair of Porsche 911 RSR-19s looked tough to beat in practice in the GT Le Mans class earlier on Friday, but in qualifying they went way beyond that.

Makowiecki in the #911 car he shares with Nick Tandy delivered a 1min40.389sec lap that put him just 0.130sec ahead of teammate Laurens Vanthoor, but 0.706sec ahead of third fastest car, the BMW M8 GTE driven heroically by Connor de Phillippi.

De Phillippi left it until his final flyer to beat the two Corvette C8.Rs of Jordan Taylor and Oliver Gavin who were separated by 0.4sec, while John Edwards was sixth in the second BMW.

 

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

Corey Fergus grabbed GT Daytona pole by just 0.074sec in Compass Racing’s McLaren 720S GT3,  edging another strong qualifying performance from Turner Motorsports’ Robby Foley in the BMW M6 GT3.

Recent class dominators AIM Vasser Sullivan saw Franke Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz slot into third and sixth places in their Lexus RC F GT3s, separated by Matt McMurry in Meyer Shank Racing’s #86 Acura NSX GT3 and Madison Snow piloting the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan. This top six, featuring five different marques, was covered by by less than 0.3sec.

Cooper MacNeil slotted his WeatherTech Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 into eighth, just behind the second MSR Acura driven by Misha Goikhberg.

Session results:

Cla	Num	Driver	Class	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	911	Nick Tandy Frédéric Makowiecki	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	1'40.389
2	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	1'40.519	0.130
3	25	Bruno Spengler Connor de Phillippi	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'41.095	0.706
4	3	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	GTLM	Corvette C8.R	1'41.228	0.839
5	4	Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C8.R	1'41.662	1.273
6	24	Jesse Krohn John Edwards	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'41.716	1.327
7	76	Corey Fergus Paul Holton	GTD	McLaren 720S GT3	1'45.236	4.847
8	96	Robby Foley Bill Auberlen	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	1'45.310	4.921
9	12	Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	1'45.397	5.008
10	86	Mario Farnbacher Matt McMurry	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'45.434	5.045
11	48	Madison Snow Bryan Sellers	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	1'45.453	5.064
12	14	Jack Hawksworth Aaron Telitz	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	1'45.524	5.135
13	63	Cooper MacNeil Toni Vilander	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	1'45.565	5.176
14	57	Alvaro Parente Mikhail Goikhberg	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'45.570	5.181
15	22	Till Bechtolsheimer Marc Miller	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'46.196	5.807
16	23	Roman De Angelis Ian James	GTD	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	1'46.391	6.002
17	74	Gar Robinson Lawson Aschenbach	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	1'46.391	6.002
18	16	Ryan Hardwick Patrick Long	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	1'46.459	6.070
19	30	Rob Ferriol Spencer Pumpelly	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	1'46.726	6.337
20	44	Andy Lally John Potter	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	1'48.186	7.797
View full results