TUDOR Championship: Joey Hand takes Ganassi Riley-Ford to pole at Road America
Joey Hand will start Sunday's Continental Tire Road Race Showcase from the overall pole, following an impressive qualifying effort by the Chip Ganassi Racing driver Saturday at Road America.
The No. 01 Riley-Ford DP was more than a half-second clear of the Prototype competition, thanks to Hand's 1:56.452 lap time in the car he'll share with Scott Pruett on Sunday.
It marked Hand's first pole of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season and the first for the team since Long Beach last year.
Christian Fittipaldi pedaled his No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP to a best time of 1:57.020 to line up alongside Hand on the front row, ahead of championship leader Michael Valiante in the VisitFlordia.com Racing Corvette in third.
The top-five was completed by Ricky Taylor and John Pew, with the Michael Shank Racing driver recording a respectable 1:57.502 lap time in the Ligier JS P2 Honda.
James French scored his third class pole of the season, following a duel with Chris Cumming for top qualifying honors in Prototype Challenge.
The No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca FLM09 will start from pole position in the PC class.
French took his Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca FLM09 to a best lap of 1:59.658 with just seconds left on the clock.
It bumped Cumming from the top spot by just 0.052 seconds and gave the Brent O'Neill-led team its third pole in the last four qualifying sessions.
Sheboygan, Wisconsin-native French will share driving duties on Sunday with Conor Daly, who had topped the overall time charts in Friday's opening practice.
The Lime Rock class pole-sitting JDC/Miller Motorsports entry of Chris Miller qualified third, ahead of championship contender Mike Guasch in fourth.
Jon Bennett completed the top-five in his CORE autosport machine.
Earl Bamber smashed the previous track record in GT Le Mans to secure his first career TUDOR United SportsCar Championship pole position Saturday at Road America.
The No. 912 Porsche, 911 RSR will start from the GTLM pole.
The New Zealander took the No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR to a lap of 2:02.384 around the 4.048-mile permanent road course.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans winner was one of five drivers under the previous track record of 2:03.747, set by John Edwards last year.
Behind Bamber, Antonio Garcia and Giancarlo Fisichella completed the top three. Garcia was 0.224 of a second in arrears of Bamber, while Fisichella was more than one second back.
Edwards was fourth with Tommy Milner completing the top five.
Garcia and co-driver Jan Magnussen in the rebuilt No. 3 Corvette C7.R hold a two-point lead over Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner in the No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE. Auberlen qualified sixth.
Patrick Pilet was unable to better a lap of 2:12.307, which slotted the No. 911 Porsche eighth and last in class and behind the top eight runners in the GT Daytona category.
The No. 73 Porsche 911 will start from pole position in the GTD class.
Patrick Lindsey emerged from the GT Daytona class field to score his second pole position of the season (Monterey) in the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT America.
Lindsey and Ben Keating engaged in a neck-and-neck scrap for the top spot, with the Porsche driver prevailing over the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper GT3-R.
Lindsey’s best time was 2:09.370 in the car he’ll share with Spencer Pumpelly; Keating ended at 2:09.488 in the car he’ll co-drive with Jeroen Bleekemolen.
The top five in the GTD class points line up from third to seventh, albeit not in points order. Christina Nielsen qualified third at a 2:09.947, ahead of Dion von Moltke, Bill Sweedler, Ian James and Cooper MacNeil.
Von Moltke and Christopher Haase currently lead Nielsen by five points heading into Sunday’s race.
The Continental Tire Road Race Showcase gets underway Sunday at 3 p.m. ET, live on FOX Sports 1.
