The United SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship both completed qualifying this evening for their doubleheader tomorrow at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
Alex Brundle won pole position in the #42 OAK Racing Ligier JS P2-Nissan with a lap of 1:57.809. It is OAK Racing's second pole of the season and their first since Watkins Glen. Ricky Taylor will start second after the #10 Corvette DP came 0.834 seconds back. Memo Rojas qualified third in the #01 Ford-Riley, over a second back of Brundle. Championship leader Chrisitan Fittipaldi put the #5 Action Express Corvette DP fourth on the grid. Johannes van Overbeek rounded out the top five in the #2 HPD ARX 03b of Extreme Speed Motorsports.
Sean Rayhall won pole position for the PC class with a lap at 2:00.528. The #25 8Star Motorsports driver is coming off a win at VIR last month and was over a half a second quicker than the PC championship leader Colin Braun in the #54 CORE Autosport Oreca. RSR Racing driver Bruno Junqueira qualified third followed by the Starworks drivers John Martin and Renger van der Zande.
Porsche's Austin all-star pairing of Patrick Pilet and Frédéric Makowiecki had won GTLM pole in the #910 Porsche RSR with a lap of 2:03.302 but after missing a camera pod on the roof, the #910 Porsche will lose their pole position. . Second in the GTLM championship, the #93 Viper driver Jonathan Bomarito will inherit pole position. The #911 and #912 Porsche move to second and third with Nick Tandy and Patrick Long behind the wheel. Marc Goossens rounded out the top four in the #91 Viper.
The #56 Rahal Letterman Lanigan BMW of John Edwards qualified fifth followed by his teammate Andy Priaulx in the #55 BMW Z4 GTE. The #3 Corvette of championship lead Antonio García will start seventh after Jan Magnussen qualified the car. Wolf Henzler qualified eighth in the #17 Team Falken Tire Porsche with the #4 Corvette of Oliver Gavin in ninth. The winner of the last two races, Pierre Kaffer and the #62 Risi Competizione starts tenth in GTLM.
James Davison put the #007 Aston Martin V12 Vantage on GTD pole with a time of 2:08.502. Jeroen Bleekmolen qualified second in the Viper GT3-R, 0.312 seconds behind the Australian. One of the three GTD championship co-leaders, Dane Cameron and the #300 Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 starts third. Runner-up in the 2014 Pirelli World Challenge GT championship, Mike Skeen qualified fourth in the #71 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT America. Kuba Giermaziak rounded out the top five in the #30 NGT Motorsport Porsche. The other co-GTD championship leaders Townsend Bell in the #555 AIM Autosport Ferrari 458 Italia and Leh Keen in the #22 Alex Job Racing Porsche will start fifteenth and sixteenth respectively in class.
The World Championship leading #8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Nicolas Lapierre won their first pole position of the 2014 season for the 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas. They put together a four-lap average of 1:49.093, over a second quicker than their nearest competitor. The #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb and the #20 Porsche of Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley will start second and third respectively. Le Mans winners, the #2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer will start fourth ahead of the #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Alexander Wurz and Stéphane Sarrazin. The #1 Audi of Lucas di Grassi, Tom Kristensen and Loïc Duval will start sixth.
The #26 Ligier JS P2-Nissan of G-Drive Racing won LMP2 pole with a four-lap average of 1:56.075 with drivers Olivier Pla, Julien Canal and Romain Rusinov. The Oreca 03R-Nissan of KCMG will start second in class with drivers Richard Bradley, Matthew Howson and Tsugio Matsuda. The #30 HPD ARX 03b of Ryan Dalziel, Scott Sharp and Ed Brown qualified third in class ahead of the SMP Racing Orecas. The #27 of LMP2 championship leader Sergey Zlobin, Nicolas Minassian and Maurizo Mediani start fourth and the #37 of Anton Ladygin, Kirll Ladygin and Viktor Shaitar round out the class.
The GT World Championship leaders of Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander won pole position in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia, their third consecutive GTE-Pro pole. They won with a four-lap average of 2:06.456. Stefan Mücke and Darren Turner will start second in the #97 Aston Martin Vantage V8. The #91 Porsche 911 RSR of Frédéric Makowiecki and Patrick Pilet will start third with their teammates, the #92 Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister and Nick Tandy joining them on row two. The #99 Aston Martin of Alex MacDowall, Fernando Rees and Darryl O'Young rounded out the GTE-Pro top five. The #71 AF Corse Ferrari of James Calado and Davide Rigon starts sixth with the #65 Corvette of Tommy Milner, Ricky and Jordan Taylor starting last in GTE-Pro.
The #75 Prospeed Competition Porsche of Emmanuel Collard, Matthieu Vaxiviére and François Perrodo won a surprise pole position in GTE-Am with a four-lap of average 2:08.271. It is the first time this season a AF Corse Ferrari is not on GTE-Am pole. The GTE-Am championship leading #95 Aston Martin of David Heinemeier Hansson, Kristian Poulsen and Richie Stanaway qualified second. The #61 AF Corse Ferrari of Mirko Venturi, Marco Cioci and Luís Pérez Companc start third with the #90 8Star Motorsports Ferrari of Jeff Segal, Gianluca Roda and Paolo Ruberti starting fourth. The #81 AF Corse made it three Ferraris in the top five with Andrea Bertolini, Michelo Rugolo and Stephan Wyatt behind the wheel.
The IMSA Lone Star Le Mans will be at 12:30 p.m. ET tomorrow with the 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas at 6:00 p.m. ET. Both races can be seen live on Fox Sports 2.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
