Verizon IndyCar Series Drivers Qualify in Rolex 24 at Daytona

Fourteen of 33 Verizon IndyCar Series starters from the Indianapolis 500, plus the 2014 Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires champion, are entered in this weekend's 53rd Rolex 24 at Daytona. Following qualifications on Thursday afternoon, two drivers will start from pole and eleven will start in the top five of their respective classes. Their qualifying class position, car number, team name and qualifying time are listed below, along with quotes from the top-performing drivers.

(*) Denotes that the driver qualified the car.

Prototype (Class Position):
2. Scott Dixon*/Tony Kanaan – No. 02 Target/Ford EcoBoost Riley, Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 1:39.302
3. Sage Karam/Charlie Kimball – No. 01 Ford EcoBoost/Target Riley, Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, 1:39.309
4. Sebastien Bourdais – No. 5 Corvette DP, Action Express Racing, 1:39.568
5. Gabby Chaves* – No. 0 DeltaWing DWC13, Claro/TracFone DeltaWing Racing, 1:39.625
8. Ryan Hunter-Reay – No. 7 Riley DP, Starworks Motorsport, 1:40.260
13. James Hinchcliffe – No. 70 Mazda, SpeedSource, 1:43.782

Prototype Challenge (Class Position):
5. Martin Plowman* – No. 61 ORECA FLM09, BAR1 Motorsports, 1:43.442
7. Jack Hawksworth – No. 11 ORECA FLM09, RSR Racing, 1:43.992

GT Le Mans (Class Position):
1. Simon Pagenaud – No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, Corvette Racing, 1:43.488 (new qualifying lap record)
4. Graham Rahal – No. 24 BMW Z4 GTE, BMW Team RLL, 1:43.966
5. Ryan Briscoe – No. Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, Corvette Racing, 1:43.976

GT Daytona (Class Position):
1. James Davison* – No. 007 Aston Martin V12 Vantage, TRG-AMG, 1:47.272
9. Townsend Bell* – No. 63 Ferrari 458 Italia, Scuderia Corsa, 1:48.117

QUOTES
• DAVISON: "I am shocked we ended on pole, to be honest. We were genuinely over a second off in practice session leading up to that on a qualifying sim, pulled a good lap together and we were over a second off. My expectations were low for qualifying. Then we had to fight a bit of adversity during the session. We waited in the pits and then it went red so I had one lap to pull it off, and just managed to time a gap on the out (lap) in front of me perfectly and I think probably picked up fix or six tenths by just towing in the whole way around the oval. Obviously the car was good and I hit my marks and so on, but for sure, we were a bit lucky today. We have a competitive car and it's just about having nothing go wrong."
• DIXON: "It's our competitive nature (to want the pole), but I just want to say a big ‘thank you' to Ford and Team Target. We've had our ups and downs and through testing and getting here, just trying to get the good balance. It's a good bounce-back, but as you said, it's a 24-hour race. It would be neat to start at the front, obviously we'd like to be there at the front, at least we're on the front row. Hopefully we can get to the end of the race, and hopefully we're in a situation at the end where we can try to take this car to victory lane."