IMSA News: Vanthoor Puts BMW On Pole For The Rolex 24
Dries Vanthoor has given BMW M Team RLL pole position for the 63rd annual Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway.
Driving in bitterly cold conditions, Vanthoor snuck up to the top of the timesheets in his #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 with a top time of 1m33.895s.
It’s Vanthoor’s first career IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole position, and the first IMSA pole for the BMW M Hybrid V8 in GTP.
Pole appeared to be going the way of Tom Blomqvist in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06. He was fastest in practice earlier.
But on his final lap, Blomqvist and the #63 Lamborghini SC63 of Mirko Bortolotti, made contact in the transition to Speedway Turn 1 and Blomqvist’s pole was gone. However, qualifying means absolutely nothing in a 24-hour race.
Nick Yelloly in the #93 Acura, was second with a time of 1m34.186s.
Reigning GTP Champion Felipe Nasr was third-quickest in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, followed by Jack Aitken in his #31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R.
“I was happy and it’s a pretty good place to start,” said Aitken. “We’re hopefully going to be in the mix in the front the start of the race. It was a bit of a weird session, very truncated and I didn’t get many laps in. I had to make that last lap count. The car felt really nice, so I think we’re in a solid position. We have a few more sessions to work on things and build a solid racecar.”
Gianmaria Bruni rounded out the top-5 in the #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche, followed by Blomqvist in the #60 MSR Acura.
Filipe Albuquerque recorded a best lap of 1m34.933s in the No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing entry for 7th, while Louis Deletraz was right behind in eighth at 1m34.935s in the No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing car.
LMP2
Daniel Goldburg, in the #22 ORECA 07topped LMP2 Qualifying with a 1m38.690s lap on a wet track. Despite the track conditions, he was within two-tenths of the pole time Keating set last year for United Autosports.
Keating will start second in the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA with his best time of 1m39.000s, three-tenths behind Goldburg.
GTD Pro
Ford Multimatic Motorsports qualified 1-2 with Mike Rockenfeller on pole in the #64 Ford Mustang GT3.
The sister #65 Ford of Frederic Vervisch was second with a 1m45.855s lap.
GTD
Elliott Skeer held off strong challenges from Trent Hindman and Philip Ellis to claim pole position for Wright Motorsports with a lap of 1m46.634s, for his first career IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole position.
A 90-minute night session today and 60-minute morning session Friday will allow teams to further fine-tune the cars for the changeable weather and track conditions during the twice-around-the-clock event.