Ricky Taylor On Overall Pole at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park

Ricky Taylor

Ricky Taylor put the No. 10 Konica Minolta Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype on the pole for Sunday’s Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix Presented by Hawk Performance at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Saturday qualifying.
But only by a hair.

His best lap was 1 minute, 9.705 seconds in the Wayne Taylor Racing entry he shares with his brother, Jordan. A close second was Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 5 Action Express Mustang Sampling Corvette DP with a lap of 1:09.864. Fittipaldi and co-driver Joao Barbosa are the reigning champions in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.

Ricky Taylor is the first repeat pole winner in the Prototype class this season.

“Qualifying has been really competitive this year," he said, “and I wanted to be the first one to repeat, especially coming off a bad weekend at Watkins Glen," where they finished 28th in a 34-car field.

Taylor, who will start the race and turn the car over to his brother near the halfway mark, is expecting it to be brutal. “Times have been close all weekend. I need to keep the car clean and give it to Jordan in one piece."

Third fastest was Scott Pruett in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford EcoBoost Riley DP he co-drives with Joey Hand. Fourth was the No. 90 VisitFlorida.com Racing Corvette DP driven by Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante. That car is the most recent winner, taking the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen two weeks ago.

In the GT Le Mans class, Nick Tandy took the pole in the No. 911 Porsche North America 911 RSR he shares with Patrick Pilet, with a lap of 1:14.829.

Close behind in second was Dirk Werner in the No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTLM with a best lap of 1:14.857. Third was Lucas Luhr in the No. 24 BMW Team RLL sister car he shares with John Edwards.

Tandy said the key to his fast time was “making sure we did everything properly, to the maximum," he said. “I was quite surprised by how fast the pace was."

In the history of the GT Le Mans class, dating back to the Rolex 24 At Daytona in January of 2014, Tandy is the first driver to score a second pole.

The competition in the GTLM class is tight, he said, and Tandy knows something about competition: He and Earl Bamber, who is driving the No. 912 sister Porsche this weekend, won the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans, teamed with Formula One driver Nico Hulkenberg.

The class is “great competition," he said. “It’s not like there is one dominant manufacturer, one dominant team." Indeed, the difference between the fastest and slowest GTLM qualifier was just over seven-tenths of a second.

In the Prototype Challenge class, James French set the fast time of 1:12.667 in his No. 38 BAR1 Motorsports ORECA-Chevrolet that he shares with Conor Daly. Second was Chris Cumming with a time of 1:12.669 in the No. 11 RSR Racing entry he co-drives with Bruno Junqueira. In third, with a best lap of 1:13.007 was John Bennett in the No. 54 CORE autosport car he co-drives with Colin Braun.

French saved his best lap for the last one, knocking Cumming off the pole at the last opportunity. “I knew what I had to do and I didn’t have a lot of time to do it," French said. “This track is really intimidating with so many high-speed corners. It’s just a matter of trusting the car and thinking everything is going to be alright."

The 23-car field will take to the 2.459-mile, 10-turn road course for the two-hour, 40-minute race at 12 p.m. ET, with FOX Sports 1 providing live television coverage in the United States and FOX Sports Racing airing the race on live television in Canada. IMSA.com and the IMSA App will stream live video, timing & scoring, and IMSA Radio’s play-by-play.

Qualifying results for Sunday’s IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix presented by Hawk Performance at the 2.459-mile, 10-turn Canadian Tire Motorsport Park circuit starting position, car number (in parentheses), driver, car and speed in miles per hour.
1. (10) Ricky Taylor, Corvette DP, 126.998 mph.
2. (5) Christian Fittipaldi, Corvette DP, 126.709.
3. (01) Scott Pruett, Riley DP Ford EcoBoost, 126.214.
4. (90) Michael Valiante, Corvette DP, 125.746.
5. (31) Eric Curran, Corvette DP, 125.552.
6. (60) John Pew, Ligier JS P2 Honda HPD, 125.166.
7. (0) Katherine Legge, DeltaWing DWC13 Elan, 124.199.
8. (07) Tom Long, Mazda, 121.885.
9. y-(38) James French, Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet, 121.821.
10. (11) Chris Cumming, Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet, 121.768.
11. (54) Jon Bennett, Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet, 121.254.
12. (52) Mike Guasch, Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet, 121.229.
13. (85) Mikhail Goikhberg, Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet, 120.986.
14. (16) John Falb, Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet, 120.901.
15. (8) Mirco Schultis, Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet, 118.891.
16. x-(911) Nick Tandy, Porsche 911 RSR, 118.302.
17. (25) Dirk Werner, BMW Z4 GTLM, 118.257.
18. (24) Lucas Luhr, BMW Z4 GTLM, 118.057.
19. (62) Pierre Kaffer, Ferrari F458 Italia, 117.565.
20. (3) Jan Magnussen, Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, 117.523.
21. (912) Joerg Bergmeister, Porsche 911 RSR, 117.428.
22. (4) Oliver Gavin, Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, 117.308.
23. (17) Bryan Sellers, Porsche 911 RSR, 117.182.

x-GT Le Mans class pole
y-PC class pole

RICKY TAYLOR, WAYNE TAYLOR RACING NO. 10 KONICA MINOLTA CORVETTE DP – POLE WINNER: "Qualifying has been real competitive this year. I had heard that there had not been a repeat pole winner so far this season until this weekend. That definitely made me want to be the first one especially coming off a bad weekend at Watkins Glen. We wanted to rebound as strongly as we could with all of our Konica Minolta partners here. I think we have 100 people here from Konica Minolta so we’re really looking forward to a good performance this weekend. I think our car has been really strong all weekend – especially in race trim. We'll look to be this good in trim tomorrow.

"I think the race is going to be interesting. The times have been really close all weekend. Someone told me this is the first Corvette on pole overall at this track. But it is a battle between three or four Corvettes up there that are going to be really close. I think it is going to be tough to overtake without traffic and almost impossible to overtake without someone making a mistake. When we get into the PC and GTLM traffic it is going to be a balance of taking a little risk and creating a little gap, or creating an overtaking opportunity and keeping yourself in the race. It is going to be quite a balance. I think from my stint, I just need to keep the car clean and give it to Jordan (Taylor) in one piece and then he can go be aggressive against (Richard) Westbrook, (Joao) Barbosa and all those guys."

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI, ACTION EXPRESS RACING NO. 5 CORVETTE DP – QUALIFIED SECOND: "That was a good run. We are happy to be starting on the front row. We were aiming for pole, but obviously that didn't happen. Hats off to the No. 10 guys. They did an excellent job. Maybe testing here on Tuesday prior to the race helped them out a little bit. But by no means can we complain. I am thankful to the team, Chevy and Joao, and tomorrow I think we have a solid car and a huge race for us to try and capitalize as much as we can on points."