Oliver Jarvis has given Mazda Team Joest its third pole position of the year in qualifying for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen. Breaking the 26-year-old Watkins Glen International lap record in the process, the driver of the #77 Mazda Team Joest Mazda RT24-P DPi clocked a 1:29.639. The Brit had already secured pole when he doubled down in the closing seconds of the session by going a fraction faster than his previous fastest lap to stay 2-tenths clear of the #6 Acura Team Penske.
IMSA WATKINS GLEN 6 HOURS | GALLERY | INTERVIEWS MAZDA | RACE REPORT | INTERVIEW RENGER VAN DER ZANDE | FRIDAY PRACTICE REPORT
Jarvis and team-mates Tristan Nunez and Timo Bernhard are looking to bring Mazda its long-awaited DPi victory.
Alongside the Mazda on the grid for Sunday’s Watkins Glen 6 Hours will be Dane Cameron, who steered his #6 Acura Team Penske to a time of 1:29.862. Cameron and Acura ARX-05 co-driver Juan Montoya go into the race chasing #31 Whelen Engineering Racing drivers Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr by 5 points for the championship lead, the two Brazilians achieving no better than seventh place in qualifying.
In the two-way battle for LMP2 honours, Gabriel Aubry grabbed the class pole in the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports. The Frenchman set a time of 1:31.735, good enough for a remarkable 8th place overall.
GT Le Mans pole went the way of the #3 Corvette Racing driven by Antonio García. In a session that saw Corvette and Ford take turns at provisional pole, it eventually was Corvette that stood atop the charts when the music stopped. Garciá’s 1:40.799 kept the Corvette C7.R ahead of the #67 Ford GT of Richard Westbrook whose fastest time of 1:41.116 was just over 3-tenths slower than the Spaniard’s.
Corvette has been looking for its 100th victory since it last won in April 2018.
Acura NSX GT3 team Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian dominated qualification in the GT Daytona class with Trent Hindman winning pole position in the #86 Acura with a time of 1:44.978 and the #57 sister car driven by Christina Nielsen placing second on the grid. The Dane timed a lap of 1:45.295 around the high-speed racetrack.
After a short 20-minute warm-up session on Sunday morning at 8:00 EDT (14:00 CET), the 6-hour race starts at 9:45 local time (15:45 CET).
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