Lime Rock IMSA: Pfaff Porsche and VS Lexus take poles

Jordan Taylor in the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R was the first GTD Pro driver to show his hand, taking first with a 51.302sec lap, until Ross Gunn’s Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage edged him by just 0.021sec.

Then Matt Campbell in the Pfaff Porsche 911 GT3 R set a 51.079sec lap to take P1, and the returning Jack Hawksworth zoomed up to second in the #14 Lexus RC F of Vasser Sullivan. He fell 0.018sec at his first attempt, but appeared set to improve until a slow third sector, while Gunn and Taylor pitted.

That meant Connor De Phillippi was unopposed as he claimed third in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-run BMW M4. Campbell pitted with two minutes to go, leaving Hawksworth and De Phillippi to make their last assaults on the Porsche driver’s benchmark. De Phillippi fell short and pitted and although Hawksworth gamely plugged on, his Michelins were past their best.

The GTD class battle at first appeared distilled to a battle between Stevan McAleer in the Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3 and the similar car of Winward Racing, as driven by Russell Ward. With 10mins to go, they were just 0.121sec apart. But then the BMW M4s of Paul Miller Racing and Turner Motorsports made their presence felt, Robby Foley in the latter car taking top spot with a 51.490sec.

Also entering the fray was Robert Megennis driving the Carbahn with Peregrine Racing machine who moved to second in class… which briefly became third as Roman De Angelis put the second HoR Aston on top, before Megennis improved again to take first.

Frankie Montecalvo in the #12 Lexus was around 0.35sec slower than his GTD Pro stablemate Hawksworth, but that was enough to claim pole from Megennis by a mere 0.006sec.

De Angelis held on to third for HoR, while even fourth place Foley was only 0.031sec away from P1.

Warm-up is on Saturday at 9.05am local (Eastern) time, with the race to follow at 3.10pm.

Cla	Driver	Class	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	Matt Campbell Mathieu Jaminet	GTD PRO	Porsche 911 GT3 R	51.079
2	Jack Hawksworth Ben Barnicoat	GTD PRO	Lexus RC F GT3	51.097	0.018
3	Connor de Phillippi John Edwards	GTD PRO	BMW M4 GT3	51.227	0.148
4	Ross Gunn Alex Riberas	GTD PRO	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	51.281	0.202
5	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	GTD PRO	Corvette C8.R GTD	51.302	0.223
6	Frankie Montecalvo Aaron Telitz	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	51.459	0.380
7	Robert Megennis Jeff Westphal	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	51.465	0.386
8	Roman De Angelis Maxime Martin	GTD	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	51.477	0.398
9	Robby Foley Bill Auberlen	GTD	BMW M4 GT3	51.490	0.411
10	Mike Skeen Stevan McAleer	GTD	Mercedes AMG GT3	51.516	0.437
11	Russell Ward Philip Ellis	GTD	Mercedes AMG GT3	51.517	0.438
12	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow	GTD	BMW M4 GT3	51.651	0.572
13	Ryan Eversley Aidan Read	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	51.741	0.662
14	Cooper MacNeil Jules Gounon	GTD PRO	Mercedes AMG GT3	52.213	1.134
15	Ryan Hardwick Jan Heylen	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	52.312	1.233
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