IndyCar’s Aleshin puts SMP Racing on pole at Daytona

Mikhail Aleshin

Soggy track conditions that only got soggier as the late afternoon progressed made for some peculiar results in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying for Saturday’s Rolex 24 At Daytona.

The 3.56-mile road course is challenging when dry. When wet, it can be downright treacherous, but the 48 cars that attempted qualifying managed to get through the session with no major incidents.

That said, the fastest qualifier in the session – the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR of Patrick Pilet, Nick Tandy and Kevin Estre had the fastest time at 2 minutes, 1.408 seconds (105.561 mph), but the car, qualified by Tandy, won’t start on the front row.

That’s because the Porsche is in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class, which is typically the third-fastest of the four classes, and it qualified when the track was drier than when the typically-fastest Prototype class, and the second-fastest Prototype Challenge cars qualified.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]IMSA rules when qualifying is declared to be held under variable conditions provide for gridding the fastest cars in order of their class for the actual race. As a result, Saturday’s polesitter is the No. 37 Nissan BR01 Prototype of Mikhail Aleshin, Maurizio Mediani, Nicholas Minassian and Kirill Ladygin, which turned in the ninth-fastest time of 2:05.793 at 101.822 mph. Aleshin qualified the car and will start the race from the overall pole.

Nick Tandy fastest of everyone in his Porsche 911 RSR

In Prototype Challenge (PC), the Chevrolet-powered ORECA FLM09 of Tomy Drissi, Marc Drumright, Brendan Gaughan, Ricardo Vera and Johnny Mowlem qualified fastest, with Mowlem posting the eighth-overall time of 2:05:708 at 101.951 mph. It was Mowlem’s consecutive pole in the class for BAR1 Motorsports. And in GT Daytona (GTD), the fastest car in the class was the No. 73 Porsche 911 GT3 of Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Lindsey, Matt McMurry and Norbert Siedler at 2:05.708 with a speed of 101.878. Siedler was behind the wheel.

Per the rules, the Prototype cars will line up at the front of the Rolex 24 at Daytona grid, followed by the PC, GTLM and GTD classes. Five cars did not take qualifying laps, including the Panoz DeltaWing Racing coupe, and the No. 72 GT Le Mans Ferrari 488 GTE was seeded at the back of the field for causing a red flag during qualifying.

Overall, the second-fastest time overall was the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR GT Le Mans car, a teammate to the No. 911. The seven fastest cars were all in the GTLM class, with a BMW M6 GTLM, two Ferrari 488 GTEs, a Chevrolet Corvette C7.R and another BMW M6 topping the time sheets.

The second-fastest Prototype, and the car that will join the No. 37 Nissan on the front row for the race, was the No. 2 Honda HPD Ligier JS P2 qualified by Pipo Derani. Second quickest in Prototype Challenge was the No. 85 car of Stephen Simpson, and the second-fastest GT Daytona qualifier was the No. 28 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 driven by Marc Basseng.

The GT Daytona class, the largest of the four with 22 entries, is almost all new this year, as IMSA adopted the global GT3 rules, meaning more manufacturers were interested in participating. Lamborghini, for instance, has five cars in the race, the first time the Italian supercar brand has participated in an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship event – and also its first time in the 54-year history of the Rolex 24.

Aleshin in the Russian entry

The Rolex 24 At Daytona is the much-anticipated debut of the Ford GT, racing in the GTLM class. A Ford GT won the 24 Hours of Le Mans 50 years ago this year, and the marque plans to return to Le Mans to try to repeat the feat. The two Ford GTs took only one lap each, qualifying ninth and 10th in class.

The IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge series also qualified Thursday, but earlier when the track was drier, for Friday's BMW Performance 200. Brothers Hugh and Matt Plumb were fastest in the GS class in their No. 13 Rum Bum Racing Porsche 911, while in the ST class, the No. 8 Rebel Rock Racing Porsche Cayman of Robin Liddell and Elliott Skeer was the fastest.

The 54th Rolex 24 At Daytona is the start of the 2016 IMSA season. U.S. television coverage begins on FS1 at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, Jan. 30. International coverage is available throughout the race on IMSA.tv and the IMSA mobile app.

Results

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