Despite an Acura setting the fastest time in a shortened qualifying session, it will be an all-Cadillac front row for the start of the 72nd Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Cadillac. Pipo Derani had the second best time for Whelen Cadillac Racing in the No. 31 V-Series.R, but when Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti lost all times for the No. 10 Acura ARX-06 – including Ricky Taylor’s best of 1m48 .038s – before working on the car in qualifying, Derani’s lap of 1.48.152s was good for pole. It is Derani’s second pole of 2024 and his second consecutive pole at Sebring.
Mathieu Jaminet crashed the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 with a six-minute run into the 15-minute session, triggering a red flag. Jaminet disabled the right wheels at the exit of Turn 1, causing the car to veer left and hit the wall, leaving the PPM crew with some work to do before tomorrow’s 9:40 a.m. race start.
Due to the red flag, the drivers had little time – less than four minutes – to warm up the tires and insert a flyer. Normally it would take them several laps to bring the tires in, but they only had one lap outside before having to put a lap on the board.
“It was a difficult qualifying session,” said Derani. “It’s never easy when you have a red flag situation where you have to do the lap. I was told on the radio that I could possibly get a second flying lap if I pushed, so of course I pushed, but I was way too fast. too close for comfort in the No. 40 Acura [driven by Louis Deletraz]. He made a few mistakes for me so I lost a bit of time because I had to control that distance to try and make sure I had a guaranteed lap in case I didn’t have a second one.
Derani attempted a second flyer, on which he was ahead of the predictive timing, but came too close to Deletraz and had to abort it.
“There is certainly more to be gained from the lap time, but it still looks like it was enough to be on pole,” he said. “It’s never the most fun way for anyone to get a pole, if no one has been able to utilize the full potential of their car. Yet it is still the same for everyone. You still have to complete a lap and make sure you don’t make any mistakes in such a pressurized situation.”
Sebastien Bourdais will start next door in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R to repeat Cadillac’s front-row lockout not only at the season-opening race at Daytona, but also at last year’s Sebring. Bourdais’ best was 0.147s on Derani.
The interrupted session produced an unusual and messy grid outside the front row. Philipp Eng qualified the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 third with a 1m48.829s, and the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 will start outside the second row thanks to Phil Hanson, who set yesterday’s fastest lap . practice sessions and set the fastest lap when qualifying was red flagged. The other privateer Porsche, the No. 5 Proton Competition 963, will start on the third row thanks to Julien Andlauer, and Deletraz placed the No. 40 Acura ARX-06 on the outside. Row four is the No. 7 PPM 963 (Felipe Nasr) and the No. 63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63 (Matteo Cairoli).
PJ Hyett shocked the LMP2 field by scoring his first pole position for just his second race in the category. His 1m52.142s in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA, nicknamed “Spike”, was 0.171s better than Dan Goldburg in the No. 22 United Autosports ORECA, who will start on the outside of the second row in a session that finished under a red flag with just over 30 seconds to go.
“There’s a lot of emotions going through me right now just because of how special this feels,” Hyett said. “Yes, the dragon certainly breathed fire today, I’ll say that.
“The really cool thing about what happened this season in between [The No. 77 GTD PRO Porsche 911 GT3 R] ‘Rexy’ on pole at Daytona and ‘Spike’ now at Sebring, is that we’ve tried to build his team in a new, fun way to attract a whole new generation of fans and get people excited about this fun-loving characters racing through the air. race track. To be able to back that up with a really strong performance in qualifying to show that we’re not just messing around, we’re trying to win here, get poles and we’ve managed to do that this year. So it’s been a lot of work, a lot has happened behind the scenes, but I think it’s great that we’ve now been able to combine our fun new approach to sports car racing with actual results.”
Goldburg’s United teammate Ben Keating had a time of 1.52.673 seconds to qualify for the No. 2 ORECA in third, 0.092 seconds ahead of Nick Boulle in the No. 52 Inter Europol of PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports. Gar Robinson (No. 74 Riley Motorsports) and George Kurtz (No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing of APR) rounded out the top six.
Hawksworth was as good as gold in the Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 as he shot to the GTD PRO pole. Jake Galstad/Motorsports Images
GTD PRO fast lapper Jack Hawksworth set a new lap record of 1:58.714 seconds in his No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3. The old GTD PRO record of 1.59.315 minutes was set last year by Antonio Garcia for Corvette Racing. Hawksworth held the three-year-old GTD record, a 1m58.217s.
“It’s very warm today, so how you bring your tires in, and the top of the tire, that window is smaller than it would be if it was 60 or 70 Fahrenheit,” Hawksworth said. “The team did a really good job of dropping me into a nice gap, so I had a completely clear track and was able to get my tires the way I wanted and then put in a nice lap, so that was good. .
“The whole weekend has been really good so far. We actually had a little trouble with the installation at first and didn’t feel super comfortable. And last night we found a few things and we’ve been feeling pretty good ever since. So I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s race and I’m looking forward to it.”
The Winward Racing Mercedes AMG from the GTD class was due to start alongside after Philip Ellis set a time of 1.58.778 minutes, but the car’s times were subsequently disapproved when the post-qualifying technical inspection revealed unauthorized sensors were in.
In its place is another GTD car, Antonio Fuoco producing a 1m59.014s in the No. 47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296, while meeting Parker Thompson in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F by 0.129s.
Mario Farnbacher was the next GTD PRO driver on the timesheet, with a time of 1.59.264 in the number 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage Evo. Mikael Grenier was next in No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes AMG; the final GTD car for a series of six GTD PRO cars.
The No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (Seb Priaulx) and No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R (Alexander Sims) led that group, with No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 (Madison Snow ) and the No. 04 Corvette Z06 GT3.R (Tommy Milner) behind it.
This story has been updated since it was first published to now include the #57 entry whose times are not allowed.
NEXT ONE: The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring starts at 9:40 a.m. ET.
RESULTS
The story originally appeared on Racer