OAK Racing scored its second consecutive TUDOR United SportsCar Championship pole following a thrilling two-way battle for top honors in qualifying Saturday at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
Gustavo Yacaman and Ryan Dalziel fought tooth-and-nail throughout the heated 15-minute qualifying session, which saw the two drivers exchange provisional pole no fewer than four times.
Despite a last-gasp attempt by Dalziel, who improved his time after returning to the track, the Colombian still came out on top, posting a 1:09.167 in his No 42 Morgan-Nissan.
It marked Yacaman’s first career IMSA pole. He will share driving duties in Sunday’s Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix with Frenchman Olivier Pla.
OAK, which is coming off a second-place result in last month’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, will be searching for its first victory of the season tomorrow.
Dalziel’s 1:09.456 lap time, which came on his 11th lap, was good enough to put the No. 1 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b second on the grid, marking the first-ever sweep of the front row for P2 cars in TUDOR Championship competition.
The No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP of Richard Westbrook qualified third with a 1:09.642 lap, while Johannes van Overbeek was fourth in his No. 2 ESM HPD, thanks to a 1:10.136 time.
Christian Fittipaldi completed the top-five overall and in the Prototype class, wheeling his No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP to a best lap of 1:10.298.
A total of 10 Prototype class cars recorded times, following the withdrawals of both the Marsh Racing Corvette DP and DeltaWing coupe, which were involved in separate incidents in Friday's practice.
It was a banner day for the Dodge Viper, as the Riley-built machines claimed poles in both GT Le Mans and GT Daytona.
Kuno Wittmer took his factory SRT Motorsports Viper GTS-R to top qualifying honors in GTLM, reeling off a 1:15.206 lap time in the No. 93 entry.
Wittmer outpaced the points-leading No. 3 Corvette C7.R of Antonio Garcia by 0.072 seconds for the Viper’s second pole of the season.
The Montreal native, who calls CTMP his home track, earned his first career top-level IMSA pole. Wittmer will share driving duties tomorrow with Jonathan Bomarito, who took class pole here last year in ALMS competition.
The No. 17 Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 RSR of Wolf Henzler qualified a season-high third, while the No. 4 Corvette C7.R of Oliver Gavin and Dirk Mueller’s No. 56 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE completed the top-five in class.
Nick Tandy (Porsche North America), Dominik Farnbacher (SRT Motorsports), Patrick Long (Porsche North America), Pierre Kaffer (Risi Competizone) and Andy Priaulx (BMW Team RLL) completed the top-10.
Owing to its competitiveness, the entire GTLM grid was separated by less than 1.2 seconds in qualifying.
Jeroen Bleekemolen, meanwhile, gave the new Dodge Viper SRT GT3-R its first pole in IMSA competition, taking the Riley Motorsports entry to the top qualifying spot in GTD.
The Dutchman recorded a best lap of 1:19.004 in the No. 33 entry he will share with Ben Keating on Sunday.
Bleekemolen's time was 0.155 seconds quicker than the No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Audi R8 LMS of Spencer Pumpelly, which had initially qualified second but will start from the rear of the field due to a ride height infringement.
It promoted Dane Cameron in the No. 94 Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3 to second, with Mario Farnbacher (Team Seattle/AJR), Dion Von Moltke (Flying Lizard) and Jan Heylen (Snow Racing) completing the top-five in class.
The Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix takes the green flag Sunday at 2:05 p.m. ET with live coverage on FOX Sports 1.
