Alex Brundle pushed the No. 42 OAK Racing Ligier JS P2 HPD to a debut pole position for the new car on North American soil ahead of Saturday's Lone Star Le Mans, Round 10 of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season.
Brundle has achieved his second (Watkins Glen) and OAK Racing's third pole this season, courtesy of the fastest TUDOR Championship lap of the weekend thus far at Circuit of the Americas. He'll share the car with Gustavo Yacaman.
The Englishman's best time of 1:57.809 at the 3.4-mile track beat three other Daytona Prototype-spec cars, and the next best P2-spec car that ended fifth.
Ricky Taylor slotted the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP into second (1:58.643) with Memo Rojas third in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Riley-Ford and Christian Fittipaldi fourth in the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP.
Johannes van Overbeek, in the lone Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b in the TUDOR Championship this weekend, lines up fifth.
Sean Rayhall took his second straight pole position in Prototype Challenge, driving the No. 25 8Star Motorsports Oreca FLM09, with a time that will slot him eighth on the overall grid.
Rayhall's best time of 2:00.528 was a solid 0.557 clear of the rest of the runners in the truncated session. He'll race Saturday with Luis Diaz.
Colin Braun (CORE autosport) and Bruno Junqueira (RSR Racing) were next, with the two Starworks Motorsport entries fourth and fifth.
Jack Hawksworth didn't get to complete a lap in the No. 08 RSR Racing as he pulled off course, and neither did David Ostella in the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry following an accident at the exit of Turn 20.
Ostella's contact brought out a red flag that truncated the session to just eight minutes of green flag running instead of the standard 15.
Jonathan Bomarito, in the No. 93 SRT Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT GTS-R, inherited the pole position for the penultimate round of the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season in GT Le Mans following post-qualifying technical inspection.
The third Porsche North America factory entry, the No. 910 Porsche 911 RSR of Patrick Pilet, set the fastest time of the day at 2:03.302. But in post-qualifying technical inspection, all times were disallowed as the car was missing a camera pod on the roof.
The pole is Bomarito’s first of the season in GTLM and second for SRT Motorsports, first since Kuno Wittmer took one at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. It also continues the streak of no repeat polesitters in GTLM through the first 10 races of the year.
Bomarito had originally moved the two full-season factory Porsches down to row two with a late flier of 2:03.649.
The No. 911 got ahead of the No. 912 to edge into third on the grid, which now becomes second after the No. 910′s penalty.
The three remaining manufacturers struggled. The pair of BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTEs are fifth and sixth on the grid, the two Corvette Racing C7.Rs seventh and ninth and the sole Risi Competizione Ferrari F458 Italia 10th on the GTLM grid.
James Davison captured his third straight GT Daytona pole in the No. 007 TRG-AMR Aston Martin Vantage, with the weekend’s fastest lap at 2:08.502. He’ll race with Al Carter.
The Aston Martin led four manufacturers in the top four positions. Jeroen Bleekemolen clocked in second in the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT GT3-R, with Dane Cameron third in the No. 300 Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3 and Mike Skeen fourth in the No. 71 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT America.
All of the top four were in the 2:08 range, with Skeen four tenths off at 2:08.984. Kuba Giermaziak got into fifth in the No. 30 MOMO NGT Motorsport Porsche 911 GT America.
Spencer Pumpelly was top Audi in the No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Audi R8 LMS in 10th, with GTD co-points leader Townsend Bell best Ferrari only 15th in the No. 555 AIM Autosport Ferrari 458 Italia GT3.
