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USA
Qualifying report

Watkins Glen 240 IMSA: Taylor beats Pla to pole

Acuras will line up 1-2 again at Watkins Glen, this time for the 2hr40min IMSA race that replaces Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in the 2021 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Watch: IMSA: Watkins Glen 240 - Taylor beats Pla to pole

Ricky Taylor delivered an excellent 1min30.058sec lap in the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 to beat the similar car of Meyer Shank Racing, driven by Olivier Pla, by 0.346sec.

After a highly entertaining session, Kevin Magnussen emerged fastest of the Cadillac DPi-V.R drivers, claiming third ahead of Pipo Derani’s Action Express Racing Caddy.

The hero of the Six Hours of The Glen, Harry Tincknell in the Mazda RT24-P, ran wide enough at Turn 8 to snatch an advertising sign on his front-left corner, so that he was unable to improve his time as the track conditions improved. The Mazda will start fifth, ahead of the JDC-Miller MotorSports Cadillac.

PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports’ Ben Keating stole LMP2 pole with a brilliant run to the checkered flag with a lap 0.423sec quicker than Steven Thomas’ best in the WIN Autosport car.

Theodor Olsen spun away a chance to start on the front row of the six-car LMP3 pack and brought out the red flag with 2mins remaining.

By then, Matteo Llarena in the Performance Tech Motorsports had proven the class of the field, 0.735sec ahead of Jon Bennett’s CORE autosport machine and 1sec ahead of Jarett Andretti in the Andretti Autosport machine.

In the GT Le Mans battle, Jordan Taylor put the #3 Corvette on pole for the second straight week at Watkins Glen, with 0.224sec margin over Nick Tandy.

In the GT Daytona session that set the class’s grid line-up, Madison Snow’s Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 topped the times with a 1min59.380sec lap, 0.440sec faster than Frankie Montecalvo’s best effort in the #12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3.

Richard Heistand was next up in the Carbahn Peregringe Racing Audi R8 LMS, followed by the two Acura NSX GT3s of Gradient Racing and Compass Racing respectively, with Roman De Angelis sixth in the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 from Heart of Racing.

Then the Pros came out to decide qualifying points, and Bill Auberlen went to the top of the speed charts with his first flyer in the Turner Motorsports BMW M6 GT3, but dived down the inside of the Compass Acura – now driven by Mario Farnbacher – at Turn 6 and spun off.

Despite this distraction, the pair of them showed superbly over the remainder of the session, winding up second and fourth respectively. But neither of them had an answer for the #14 VSR Lexus of Jack Hawksworth which emerged quickest by half a second over Auberlen, with Daniel Morad clocking third in the Alegra Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Qualifying results:

Cla Num Driver Class Chassis Time Gap
1 10 United States Ricky Taylor
Portugal Filipe Albuquerque
DPi Acura DPi 1'30.058
2 60 United States Dane Cameron
France Olivier Pla
DPi Acura DPi 1'30.404 0.346
4 31 Brazil Felipe Nasr
Brazil Pipo Derani
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'30.684 0.626
5 55 United Kingdom Oliver Jarvis
United Kingdom Harry Tincknell
DPi Mazda DPi 1'30.947 0.889
6 5 France Tristan Vautier
France Loic Duval
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'31.094 1.036
7 52 United States Ben Keating
Denmark Mikkel Jensen
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'34.969 4.911
8 11 United States Thomas Steven
United States Tristan Nunez
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'35.392 5.334
9 8 Canada John Farano
France Gabriel Aubry
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'39.644 9.586
10 38 Sweden Rasmus Lindh
Guatemala Mateo Llarena
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'42.633 12.575
11 54 United States Jon Bennett
United States Colin Braun
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'43.368 13.310
12 36 United States Jarett Andretti
United States Oliver Askew
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'43.608 13.550
13 3 Spain Antonio Garcia
United States Jordan Taylor
GTLM Corvette C8.R 1'43.821 13.763
14 4 United States Tommy Milner
United Kingdom Nick Tandy
GTLM Corvette C8.R 1'44.045 13.987
15 74 United States Gar Robinson
Brazil Felipe Fraga
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'44.650 14.592
16 84 Theodor Olsen
Dominic Cicero
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'49.677 19.619
17 91 United States Jim Cox
United States Dylan Murry
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'50.230 20.172
18 79 United States Cooper MacNeil
Australia Matt Campbell
GTLM Porsche 911 RSR - 19 1'57.420 27.362
19 1 United States Bryan Sellers
United States Madison Snow
GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3 1'59.380 29.322
20 12 United States Frankie Montecalvo
United States Zach Veach
GTD Lexus RC F GT3 1'59.820 29.762
21 39 United States Richard Heistand
United States Jeff Westphal
GTD Audi R8 LMS GT3 2'00.946 30.888
22 66 United States Till Bechtolsheimer
United States Marc Miller
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'01.146 31.088
23 76 Jeff Kingsley
Germany Mario Farnbacher
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'01.146 31.088
24 23 Canada Roman De Angelis
United Kingdom Ross Gunn
GTD Aston Martin Vantage GT3 2'01.198 31.140
25 28 United States Michael de Quesada
Canada Daniel Morad
GTD Mercedes-AMG GT3 2'01.201 31.143
26 14 United States Aaron Telitz
United Kingdom Jack Hawksworth
GTD Lexus RC F GT3 2'01.396 31.338
27 96 United States Bill Auberlen
United States Robby Foley
GTD BMW M6 GT3 2'01.894 31.836
28 88 United States Rob Ferriol
United Kingdom Katherine Legge
GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R 2'02.907 32.849
29 32 United States Guy Cosmo
United States Shane Lewis
GTD Mercedes-AMG GT3 2'04.610 34.552
30 19 Canada Mikhail Goikhberg
France Franck Perera
GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3

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