RacingNation.com

Taylor Tops IMSA Qualifying In Austin

The pole winning Corvette DP. [Photo by Jack Webster]

By Jack Webster & Eddie Le Pine

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship has made its annual appearance at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas and everything is go for today.

The race itself promises to be as hot as the weather. In the Prototype class Ricky Taylor put the Konica Minolta Corvette DP on pole, besting Tristan Nunez in the Mazda by only .003 seconds. Joel Miller took third on the grid with the other Mazda, only .408 back, while the Action Express entries took 4th and 5th on the grid. The top five cars are only separated by .709 seconds.

Ricky Taylor commented: “It’s very hot and slippery. The Continental tires are really good though. It’s really close to what we are going to get tomorrow, as far as race conditions. Hopefully this is a good read on how well we’ll stack up. It’s going to be a close race tomorrow with tire wear and getting through the race cleanly.”

In LMPC, Robert Alon in the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca took pole over Jose Guiterrrez by .424 seconds.

In GTLM, it was once again a hotly contested qualifying session, with the Ford GT driven by Ryan Briscoe taking the top spot over Toni Vilander in the Ferrari F488 GTE. Closely following were the factory Porsche 911 RSRs in third and fourth with Dirk Muller rounding out the top five in the other Ford GT entry.

Ryan Briscoe, GTLM pole sitter, commented on the Ford presence at COTA, both in the IMSA race and the FIA-WEC. They have a total of four cars running, two in each series. “It’s pretty great to have all four Ford GTs here this weekend. We’ve been sharing information all year long. We’ll see if some of our information can carry over to the WEC team. And it’s good to be on the pole, we’re going to try and run strong all day and stay out front.”

In GTD, Alex Riberas put the Team Seattle/Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R on top, besting Lawson Aschenbach’s Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS GT3 by .376 seconds. Rounding out the top five were Patrick Lindsey in the Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, Andrew Davis in the second Stevenson Motorsports Audi and Christina Nielsen in the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3. Again, it was close, with the top five cars within just over a second of each other.

So it is going to be a hot day in Austin, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid 90s.

The WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race looks to be just as hot.

Share Button