First row for Cadillac and Porsche at Road America

IMSA

Aug 6

Derani wins pole in Road America qualifying.

📷 © Courtesy of IMSA. Pipo Derani wins pole with #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R

The No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R was first and a close second to the sister Cadillac in the two practice sessions Friday on the recently resurfaced 4-mile, 14-turn road course.

The quickness carried over Saturday in the 20-minute qualifying session for the IMSA Sports Car Weekend at Road America.

Pipo Derani’s lap of 1 minute, 47.730 seconds (135.271 mph) eclipsed the 2019 DPi track record by nearly a full second and the 2021 DPi champion secured his ninth career IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole and second for Cadillac Racing in the inaugural season of the Grand Touring Prototype class. Source: Cadillac Racing.

📷 © Courtesy of IMSA. #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R.

"The 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R was perfect today and all week and I'm happy to put the lap together that earned the pole for the 2-hour, 40-minute race. Everyone involved has done a fantastic job this year and I have to thank all my guys,” said Derani, who earned the pole at Sebring International Raceway and teamed with Alexander Sims and Jack Aitken to win the race.

“It's not done yet. Qualifying doesn't mean much except for a few qualifying points that could count in the end. Anything you can do to try to extend a championship points lead is good for us. Coming into this race with a new tarmac you want to be ahead because it's hard to overtake the GTs, so you can perhaps control the race a bit better. A lot can happen in the race; we know that in IMSA with the yellows and everything. We try to go session by session and I think we've been doing that quite well. The competition is very close, including the sister Cadillac V-Series.R, so there's a lot we have to do to bring home a win tomorrow. I knew everything had to be nailed for qualifying to be able to start out front. We still have to execute perfectly despite starting out front." Source: Cadillac Racing.

Matt Campbell missed pole position by just 0.068 seconds

Matt Campbell drove a sensational lap in the No. 7 hybrid Porsche 963: The Australian lapped the 6.515-kilometre circuit in 1:47.798 minutes and missed pole position by just 0.068 seconds. On asphalt that was only slightly warmer, the drivers needed several warm-up laps to bring the tyres into the optimum operating window for their pole position attempt. Matt Campbell waited patiently behind the wheel of the #7 Porsche 963 and only launched his attack with three minutes left on the clock. With some significant improvements in all three sectors of the track, the Australian works driver managed to catapult from eighth to second place. Source: Porsche

Matt Campbell (Porsche 963 #7): “On Friday we didn’t find our rhythm, especially in the first two sectors. Before qualifying, we made extensive changes to the setup – that definitely paid off. Many thanks to everyone involved in that process. I gave everything in the hunt for top times and was really pushing the limit. It’s a shame that I missed out on pole by such a narrow margin. But from second on the grid, anything is possible in the race.” Source: Porsche.

Sebastien Bourdais qualifies third.

Sebastien Bourdais drove the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R to third on the grid with a lap of 1:48.036 – its sixth top-four start in seven races – and will share the seat with Renger van der Zande. Bourdais was .306 of a second short from earning second front-row start of the season.

📷 © Courtesy of IMSA. #3 Corvette C8.R GTD.

Sebastien Bourdais drove in the 20-minute qualifying session with best lap of 1:48.036 for third on grid: "Hats off to Pipo (Derani); he did it again. I didn't put together the lap I wanted. We tried to optimize everything and it should have been quite a bit faster but it couldn't carry the speed. The guys did a better job than that, but good day overall for Cadillac and we'll go racing from there." Source: Cadillac Racing..

Filipe Albuquerque fourth

Filipe Albuquerque led the Acura effort at Road America today, qualifying fourth in the #10 Acura ARX-06 prototype he will share with Ricky Taylor in Sunday’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race.

📷 © Courtesy of IMSA. #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura ARX-06.

Filipe Albuquerque: “I enjoyed qualifying so much here at Road America, the low fuel, new tires, no traffic – it’s awesome, but today we didn’t have it for those laps on pole position, unfortunately, and I really thought we had it. I figured out that we had too much understeer on the car. The race will be completely different, so P4 is a good starting point.” Source: Acura Motorsports.

The live USA Network telecast and Peacock streaming of the race starts at 11 a.m. ET Sunday, Aug. 6. Outside the U.S., streaming will be available at IMSA.com/TVLive. IMSA Radio at IMSA.com, RadioLeMans.com plus SiriusXM live (XM 207, Web/App 992) broadcast of the race also starts at 11 a.m.