Austin United SportsCar: Scott Pruett puts Ganassi on pole
Ganassi driver Scott Pruett secured pole position for Saturday's United SportsCar Championship race in an entertaining qualifying session at Austin
Pruett's fastest time, a 1m58.441s, was enough for him to edge out Michael Shank Racing's Oswaldo Negri Jr by 0.071 seconds.
Negri was the first driver to dip below the two-minute marker in his Ligier and gradually lowered that to a 1m58.512s.
But Pruett, who had been fastest in the day's earlier final practice session, exploited IMSA's more open approach to track limits rules than the headlining World Endurance Championship to go quickest on his first lap.
He then improved his time halfway through the session to nudge back ahead of Negri.
And despite his efforts to retaliate, Negri's final lap was half a second shy of his previous best after his tyres fell away to leave him and team-mate John Pew second to Pruett and Joey Hand's Riley-Ford.
Early leader Michael Valiante ran into trouble in his Corvette DP as he coasted through the pitlane, before coming to a halt on the inside of Turn 1. He was able to get going again, but was forced to settle for a place on the third row of the grid.
RSR Racing's Chris Cumming had a more straightforward run to the Prototype Challenge pole, 0.475s ahead of nearest challenger Matt McMurry in the JDC/Miller entry.
Cumming looked the quickest throughout and his margin back to third-placed James French's Performance Tech car was a second-and-a-half.
Early signs in the GT Le Mans session suggested that Patrick Pilet and Earl Bamber would dominate in their respective Porsche 911s, but Dirk Werner produced an impressive lap to split the pair in his and Bill Auberlen's Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE.
Dion Von Moltke will start from the GT Daytona pole after he qualified his and Christopher Haase's Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 LMS more than half a second ahead of Ben Keating (Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT).
Championship challengers Bill Sweedler and Townsend Bell ended up third in the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari, ahead of points leader Christina Nielsen's TRG Aston Martin.
QUALIFYING RESULTS:
| Pos | Class | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P | J.Hand, S.Pruett | Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates | Riley/Ford | 1m58.441s | - |
| 2 | P | J.Pew, O.Negri | Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian | Ligier/HPD | 1m58.512s | 0.071s |
| 3 | P | J.Barbosa, C.Fittipaldi | Action Express Racing | Corvette/Chevrolet | 1m59.008s | 0.567s |
| 4 | P | R.Taylor, J.Taylor | Wayne Taylor Racing | Corvette/Chevrolet | 1m59.033s | 0.592s |
| 5 | P | E.Curran, D.Cameron | Action Express Racing | Corvette/Chevrolet | 2m00.011s | 1.570s |
| 6 | P | R.Westbrook, M.Valiante | visitflorida.com Racing | Corvette/Chevrolet | 2m00.111s | 1.670s |
| 7 | P | M.Rojas, K.Legge | Claro / TracFone DeltaWing Racing | DeltaWing/Elan | 2m01.570s | 3.129s |
| 8 | PC | B.Junqueira, C.Cumming | RSR Racing | ORECA/Chevrolet | 2m02.222s | 3.781s |
| 9 | PC | M.Goikhberg, M.McMurry | JDC-Miller Motorsports | ORECA/Chevrolet | 2m02.697s | 4.256s |
| 10 | P | T.Nunez, J.Bomarito | Mazda Motorsports | Mazda | 2m02.779s | 4.338s |
| 11 | P | T.Long, J.Miller | Speedsource | Mazda | 2m03.484s | 5.043s |
| 12 | PC | J.French, C.Daly | Performance Tech Motorsports | ORECA/Chevrolet | 2m03.586s | 5.145s |
| 13 | PC | J.Bennett, C.Braun | CORE Autosport | ORECA/Chevrolet | 2m03.697s | 5.256s |
| 14 | PC | R.van der Zande, M.Hedlund | Starworks Motorsport | ORECA/Chevrolet | 2m04.009s | 5.568s |
| 15 | GTLM | N.Tandy, P.Pilet | Porsche North America | Porsche | 2m04.396s | 5.955s |
| 16 | PC | M.Guasch, T.K.-Smith | PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports | ORECA/Chevrolet | 2m04.432s | 5.991s |
| 17 | GTLM | B.Auberlen, D.Werner | BMW Team RLL | BMW | 2m04.490s | 6.049s |
| 18 | GTLM | J.Bergmeister, E.Bamber | Porsche North America | Porsche | 2m04.625s | 6.184s |
| 19 | GTLM | J.Magnussen, A.Garcia | Corvette Racing | Chevrolet | 2m04.651s | 6.210s |
| 20 | GTLM | B.Sellers, W.Henzler | Team Falken Tire | Porsche | 2m04.813s | 6.372s |
| 21 | GTLM | J.M.Edwards, L.Luhr | BMW Team RLL | BMW | 2m04.968s | 6.527s |
| 22 | GTLM | O.Gavin, T.Milner | Corvette Racing | Chevrolet | 2m05.245s | 6.804s |
| 23 | GTLM | P.Kaffer, G.Fisichella | Risi Competizione | Ferrari | 2m05.996s | 7.555s |
| 24 | PC | D.Yount, R.Lewis | BAR1 Motorsports | ORECA/Chevrolet | 2m08.350s | 9.909s |
| 25 | GTD | C.Haase, D.von Moltke | Paul Miller Racing | Audi | 2m11.097s | 12.656s |
| 26 | GTD | B.Keating, J.Bleekemolen | Riley Motorsports | Dodge | 2m11.658s | 13.217s |
| 27 | GTD | B.Sweedler, T.Bell | Scuderia Corsa | Ferrari | 2m11.729s | 13.288s |
| 28 | GTD | C.Nielsen, K.Wittmer | TRG-AMR | Aston Martin | 2m11.761s | 13.320s |
| 29 | GTD | P.Lindsey, S.Pumpelly | Park Place Motorsports | Porsche | 2m12.213s | 13.772s |
| 30 | GTD | J.Potter, A.Lally | Magnus Racing | Porsche | 2m12.478s | 14.037s |
| 31 | GTD | D.Knox, M.Goossens | Lone Star Racing | Dodge | 2m12.835s | 14.394s |
| 32 | GTD | I.James, M.Farnbacher | Team Seattle/Alex Job Racing | Porsche | 2m12.935s | 14.494s |
| 33 | GTD | M.Marsal, M.Palttala | Turner Motorsport | BMW | 2m13.054s | 14.613s |
| 34 | GTD | C.MacNeil, L.Keen | Alex Job Racing | Porsche | 2m13.126s | 14.685s |
| 35 | GTD | M.Vess, J.Hart | Flying Lizard Motorsports | Audi | 2m16.353s | 17.912s |
| 36 | GTD | R.Mason, P.Kleinubing | Compass360 Racing | Audi | 2m16.518s | 18.077s |
| 37 | PC | T.Slusher, J.Falb | BAR1 Motorsports | ORECA/Chevrolet | - | - |
| 38 | PC | A.Popow, S.Rayhall | Starworks Motorsport | ORECA/Chevrolet | - | - |
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