Vautier puts #90 Cadillac on Sebring pole

Vautier drives the #90 Cadillac to pole
Vautier drives the #90 Cadillac to pole

Tristan Vautier put the #90 Cadillac on pole for Saturday’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring – the second round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.

The Spirit of Daytona driver put up a fast lap of 1:47.432 in the No. 90 Cadillac DPi-V.R, outpacing the No. 2 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan Onroak DPi of Olivier Pla by 0.160 seconds.

Ricky Taylor will roll off third in the No. 7 Team Penske Acura ARX-05, following a spin in his DPi contender early in the 15-minute session.

Taylor recorded a 1:47.773, edging out ESM’s sister No. 22 Nissan DPi of Pipo Derani in fourth.

#25 BMW charges to pole
#25 BMW charges to pole

Thanks to BMW receiving multiple Balance of Performance breaks since January’s season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona, Connor De Phillippi narrowly edged James Calado to take the first pole for the BMW M8 GTE and will lead the GT Le Mans class field to green tomorrow in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

De Phillippi’s best lap of 1:55.839 in the No. 25 BMW Team RLL entry was a new class track record, and checked in a mere 0.058 seconds faster than Calado’s fastest time in the No. 62 Ferrari 488 GTE for Risi Competizione.

It was the first pole for BMW since taking the top spot at Circuit of The Americas last year.

“This is my second pole in a row, so I seem to like this place!" said Vautier. “The whole track is very technical and very high-commitment, and that suits me. And obviously you must have a good setup as well, and both times I’ve been on pole I’ve had a very good engineer. But I was going for it. With the new Continental Tire spec and the heat, the tires came in very quick. No one expected that lap time. I saw a 47 on the dash and I didn’t expect it to be that quick. My second flyer didn’t feel like my best lap so I thought that it was going to be tough for anyone else to beat that time."

Team owner Troy Flis was happy to see the signature blue Spirit of Daytona colors back on top, especially for one of the biggest races of the season.

“It’s been a tough weekend," said an emotional Flis. “But Tristan did a great job driving this car and we just need to thank Cadillac for all the help. We really needed this. I’m excited about tomorrow. We knew we were going to come here with a good car and I know we have the best team, but we have to make it to the end. It’s always a tough race here but this is one race we haven’t won and we really want it. We know we have a good car and a great team, so we have to stay out of trouble and get it done."

“This means a lot to the team," Vautier continued. “To think that the guys got the car in December and powered through the Christmas break to get it ready, then with the issues we had yesterday – to be in the top-five at Daytona and on pole here is big. When you see the names of the teams and drivers that we’ve put behind us in qualifying, it means a lot. The race is going to be tough, you have to push 101 percent. I don’t think there’s going to be much race management or saving anything for the end: the level of competition is just too high, people will be pushing the whole time. We’ll work to stay in contention the whole race and be there for the final push."

A final 20-minute warmup session for the WeatherTech Championship is scheduled for 8 a.m. ET Saturday morning ahead of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. The race itself is scheduled for a 10:40 a.m. ET start.

Results

Pos Pic Driver Mfg Time Behind
1 1 Tristan Vautier #90 CADILLAC DPICP 1:47.432 0.000S
2 2 Olivier Pla #2 NISSAN DPICP 1:47.592 0.160
3 3 Ricky Taylor #7 ACURA DPICP 1:47.773 0.341
4 4 Pipo Derani #22 NISSAN DPICP 1:47.834 0.402
5 5 Felipe Nasr #31 CADILLAC DPICP 1:47.853 0.421
6 6 Juan Pablo Montoya #6 ACURA DPICP 1:48.177 0.745
7 7 Rene Rast #77 MAZDA DPICP 1:48.192 0.760
8 8 Filipe Albuquerque #5 CADILLAC DPICP 1:48.256 0.824
9 9 Jonathan Bomarito #55 MAZDA DPICP 1:48.279 0.847
10 10 Renger Van Der Zande #10 CADILLAC DPICP 1:48.370 0.938
11 11 Stephen Simpson #99 ORECA LMP2CP 1:48.742 1.310
12 12 Pato O Ward #38 ORECA LMP2CP 1:49.068 1.636
13 13 Colin Braun #54 ORECA LMP2CP 1:49.158 1.726
14 14 Simon Trummer #85 ORECA LMP2CP 1:49.329 1.897
15 15 Sebastian Saavedra #52 LIGIER LMP2CP 1:49.423 1.991
16 16 Paul Di Resta #32 LIGIER LMP2CP 1:49.488 2.056
17 1 Connor De Phillippi #25 BMW M8 GTLMMGTLM 1:55.839 8.407
18 2 James Calado #62 FERRARI 488 GTEMGTLM 1:55.897 8.465
19 3 Jesse Krohn #24 BMW M8 GTLMMGTLM 1:55.985 8.553
20 4 Richard Westbrook #67 FORD GTMGTLM 1:56.098 8.666
21 5 Joey Hand #66 FORD GTMGTLM 1:56.191 8.759
22 6 Laurens Vanthoor #912 PORSCHE 911 RSRMGTLM 1:56.251 8.819
23 7 Antonio Garcia #3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.RMGTLM 1:56.588 9.156
24 8 Nick Tandy #911 PORSCHE 911 RSRMGTLM 1:56.626 9.194
25 9 Tommy Milner #4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.RMGTLM 1:56.900 9.468
26 1 Daniel Serra #51 FERRARI 488 GT3CGTD 1:58.710 11.278
27 2 Christopher Mies #29 AUDI R8 LMS GT3CGTD 1:59.229 11.797
28 3 Jack Hawksworth #15 LEXUS RC F GT3CGTD 1:59.251 11.819
29 4 Dominik Baumann #14 LEXUS RC F GT3CGTD 1:59.476 12.044
30 5 Madison Snow #48 LAMBORGHINI HURACAN GT3CGTD 1:59.489 12.057
31 6 Gunnar Jeannette #63 FERRARI 488 GT3CGTD 1:59.609 12.177
32 7 Thomas Jaeger #75 MERCEDES-AMG GT3CGTD 1:59.952 12.520
33 8 Tom Dyer #69 ACURA NSX GT3CGTD 2:00.069 12.637
34 9 Frank Montecalvo #64 FERRARI 488 GT3CGTD 2:00.080 12.648
35 10 Katherine Legge #86 ACURA NSX GT3CGTD 2:00.198 12.766
36 11 Christina Nielsen #58 PORSCHE 911 GT3 RCGTD 2:00.378 12.946
37 12 Marc Miller #36 ACURA NSX GT3CGTD 2:00.686 13.254
38 13 Kenton Koch #71 MERCEDES-AMG GT3CGTD 2:00.717 13.285
39 14 Ben Keating #33 MERCEDES-AMG GT3CGTD 2:00.743 13.311
40 15 John Potter #44 AUDI R8 LMS GT3CGTD 2:02.151 14.719
41 16 Don Yount #96 BMW M6 GT3CGTD 2:03.227 15.795
42 17 Timothy Pappas #73 PORSCHE 911 GT3 RCGTD 2:04.650 17.218
43 18 Justin Marks #93 ACURA NSX GT3CGTD 0.000

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