Taylor puts No. 10 on pole in Austin

Ricky Taylor

AUSTIN, Texas – Boy, that was close: Prototype driver Ricky Taylor qualified his No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Konica Minolta Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype on the pole for the Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of The Americas with a lap of one minute, 58.712 seconds, squeezing past Joel Miller in the No. 55 Mazda Prototype by just three-thousandths of a second.

Miller's best time of 1:58.715 came on lap three of qualifying, while Taylor's fastest time was on lap four. While the ambient temperature was 87 degrees, the track temperature was 122, meaning peak performance from the tires came early in the session.

"It was very hot and slippery," Taylor said. "The Continental tire is very good, though. This is as close as we're going to get to the race tomorrow in terms of conditions, so hopefully this is a good read on how we'll all stack up. It's going to be a tough race tomorrow with tire wear and getting through the race cleanly."

Third in Prototype qualifying was the No. 70 team Mazda Prototype of Joel Miller, whose best lap was 1:59.120. Fourth was Eric Curran in the No. 31 Action Express Whelen Corvette DP, and fifth was the team car, the No. 5 Action Express Mustang Sampling car of Christian Fittipaldi.

In Prototype Challenge, Robert Alon put the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen ORECA-Chevrolet on the pole with a lap of 2:01.847, about a half-second ahead of Jose Gutierrez in the No. 7 Starworks entry. Alon said he expects the predicted, similar heat for Saturday's race will be a factor, not so much for tire management, "but just making sure you don't overdrive the car," he said.

In GT Le Mans, Ryan Briscoe scored the pole for the No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT with a lap of 2:04.188, a half-second ahead of Toni Vilander in the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE. Third was the No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR of Patrick Pilet, followed by teammate Frederic Makowiecki in the No. 912 Porsche.

Dirk Mueller in the No. 66 Ford GT was fifth, with the No. 4 Corvette Racing C7.R of Oliver Gavin in sixth, more than a full second behind the polesitting No. 67 Ford GT. Gavin and co-driver Tommy Milner lead the GT Le Mans points over second-place Briscoe and Richard Westbrook, so tomorrow's race – the next-to-last for the season – will have implications for the championship.

In GT Daytona, Alex Riberas qualified the No. 23 Alex Job-Team Seattle Porsche 911 GT3 R just ahead of Lawson Aschenbach in the No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS GT3. Third was the other Porsche 911 GT3 R in the field, the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports entry driven by Patrick Lindsey.

The big 39-car field takes the green flag at 12:30 p.m. ET, with the two-hour, 40-minute race televised live on FOX Sports 2. IMSA Radio also will supply coverage, available at IMSA.com.

The six-hour FIA WEC race takes to the COTA track at 5 p.m. Saturday, following the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race.

Taylor, in Wayne Taylor Racing's No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette Daytona Prototype, set a lap of 1:58.712 in the car he shares with his brother, Jordan. It is the third pole of the year for the Corvette DP this season.

RICKY TAYLOR, WAYNE TAYLOR RACING NO. 10 KONICA MINOLTA CORVETTE DP – PROTOTYPE POLE-WINNER: "Yeah, I wish we could have had some more (pole positions) this year. The guys definitely gave me a great car all season. I'm sick of those Mazdas on pole, so it's nice to get one for the Corvette. It wasn't a perfect lap. The track was very different from the other sessions. You gained a little bit in one place, lose a little in another. I'm not sure if it was the same for everybody, but just really excited we got a bunch of Konica Minolta and DLL people here this weekend, so I'm glad to do it for them. Hopefully, we can do the same thing tomorrow."

(On qualifying later in the day in the FIA WEC race): "Yeah, I'm about to try to run over to the Larbre Corvette, so I can't get enough Corvette's today. Hopefully we can do the same thing over there."

(Track conditions) "The track is very slippery in the heat. It changes a lot. It hasn't been like this at all this week, so it was all about adapting to the track. You can overdrive some places and under drive others trying to put together a lap. Hopefully we have a good read on tomorrow and we'll be on full attack. The heat is always a big factor here. These race cars are very hot inside. Physically as well as performance-wise with the race car, it's hard on everything – tires, fuel, engine, everything. Hopefully it's a good representation of what we will see tomorrow with the pace. It will be all about conserving tires and making sure you're in the hunt at the end.

"The Continental tires were really good. This is as close as we're going to get to tomorrow, in terms of the conditions. Hopefully this is a good read on how we will stack up. It will be a tough race on tire wear and getting through the race cleanly."

Results

The green flag flies at 12:35 p.m. EDT Saturday with live television provided by FS1 beginning at 12:30 p.m. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions is available at IMSA.com and the IMSA smartphone app.