Qualifying report

IMSA Laguna Seca

IMSA Laguna Seca: Acuras lock out front row, Corvette tops GTLM

Juan Pablo Montoya beat Acura Team Penske teammate Helio Castroneves to land pole for the penultimate round of the 2020 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

David Malsher-Lopez

Edited: Nov 2, 2020, 4:09 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

#6 Acura Team Penske Acura DPi, DPi: Juan Pablo Montoya, Dane Cameron

Defending champion Montoya turned a 1min15.174sec of the 2.238-mile WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, to beat his championship-contending teammate Castroneves by 0.159sec.

Oliver Jarvis fell just 0.078sec short of splitting the ARX-05s with his Mazda RT24-Ps, and was a mere 0.009sec ahead of Pipo Derani’s best in the fastest of the Cadillac DPi-V.Rs, Action Express Racing’s entry piloted by Pipo Derani.

JDC Miller Motorsports’ Tristan Vautier did a fine job to nab fifth ahead of the second Mazda of Jonathan Bomarito, while Ryan Briscoe and Matheus Leist completed the fourth row for Wayne Taylor Racing and JDC Miller respectively.

Patrick Kelly, driving the sole LMP2 entry this weekend, turned 11 laps of the track, and despite a few offs as he explored the limits of his PR1-Mathiasen Oreca, came well within 2sec of the top DPi time.

Corvette Racing’s Jordan Taylor worked hard to land his fourth GT Le Mans pole position of the season, setting a 1min21.483sec lap – a new GTLM class record – on his final flyer.

Porsche’s Laurens Vanthoor, despite an off, was able to clean his Michelins and draw within a quarter-second of his rival, but it turned out that championship leader Taylor had delivered the #3 C8.R’s fifth pole of the year.

Oliver Gavin, who it was revealed yesterday would be stepping down from Corvette’s full-time driver roster at season’s end, landed P3 ahead of the two BMW M8s.

Frederic Makowiecki’s #911 Porsche emerged late in the session and ran only two laps before pitting.

Matt McMurry set a 1min25.125sec in the #86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX and then parked after just four laps leaving others a tough target at which to aim. Robby Foley, whose Turner Motorsports BMW M6 topped both of Saturday’s practice sessions, lowered his deficit to the Acura from 0.055sec to 0.014sec but couldn’t quite complete the job and quit trying after six laps. That left McMurry with his first ever GT Daytona-class pole.

Cooper MacNeil was 0.2sec adrift in the WeatherTech Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488, but was fast enough to beat the second MSR Acura of Misha Goikhberg by a tenth.

Frankie Montecalvo’s #12 Lexus RC F took fifth, but the sister car was out of luck. Aaron Telitz suffered a right-rear puncture on the #14 Lexus RC F after turning just three laps and his best effort to that point saw him fall to 10th, since teams aren’t allowed to touch their cars during the qualifying sessions, meaning he was unable to collect a new tire.

That misfortune allowed Ian James to claim sixth in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage ahead of Jeff Kingsley’s Compass Racing McLaren 720S and Till Bechtolshiemer in the Gradient Racing Acura.

The 2hr40min race – the Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship – begins at 1.05pm local (Pacific) time, 4.05pm ET.

Cla Num Driver Class Chassis Laps Time Gap 1 6 Colombia Juan Pablo Montoya
United States Dane Cameron DPi Acura DPi 8 1'15.174 2 7 Brazil Helio Castroneves
Ricky Taylor DPi Acura DPi 9 1'15.333 0.159 3 77 United Kingdom Oliver Jarvis
Tristan Nunez DPi Mazda DPi 7 1'15.411 0.237 4 31 Brazil Felipe Nasr
Brazil Pipo Derani DPi Cadillac DPi 8 1'15.420 0.246 5 5 France Sébastien Bourdais
France Tristan Vautier DPi Cadillac DPi 8 1'15.461 0.287 6 55 United States Jonathan Bomarito
Harry Tincknell DPi Mazda DPi 8 1'15.580 0.406 7 10 Netherlands Renger van der Zande
Australia Ryan Briscoe DPi Cadillac DPi 8 1'15.729 0.555 8 85 Brazil Matheus Leist
South Africa Stephen Simpson DPi Cadillac DPi 8 1'15.852 0.678 9 52 Patrick Kelly
Switzerland Simon Trummer LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 11 1'19.598 4.424 10 3 Spain Antonio Garcia
United States Jordan Taylor GTLM Corvette C8.R 6 1'21.483 6.309 11 912 New Zealand Earl Bamber
Belgium Laurens Vanthoor GTLM Porsche 911 RSR - 19 7 1'21.725 6.551 12 4 United Kingdom Oliver Gavin
Tommy Milner GTLM Corvette C8.R 6 1'21.853 6.679 13 25 Canada Bruno Spengler
Connor de Phillippi GTLM BMW M8 GTE 5 1'22.054 6.880 14 24 Finland Jesse Krohn
United States John Edwards GTLM BMW M8 GTE 4 1'22.120 6.946 15 86 Germany Mario Farnbacher
Matt McMurry GTD Acura NSX GT3 4 1'25.126 9.952 16 96 Bill Auberlen
Robby Foley GTD BMW M6 GT3 6 1'25.140 9.966 17 63 Cooper MacNeil
Italy Alessandro Balzan GTD Ferrari 488 GT3 7 1'25.318 10.144 18 57 Portugal Alvaro Parente
Canada Mikhail Goikhberg GTD Acura NSX GT3 5 1'25.426 10.252 19 12 United States Frankie Montecalvo
Townsend Bell GTD Lexus RC F GT3 4 1'25.475 10.301 20 23 United Kingdom Ian James
Canada Roman De Angelis GTD Aston Martin Vantage GT3 5 1'25.676 10.502 21 76 Jeff Kingsley
Paul Holton GTD McLaren 720S GT3 7 1'25.826 10.652 22 22 Till Bechtolsheimer
Marc Miller GTD Acura NSX GT3 8 1'26.012 10.838 23 16 United States Ryan Hardwick
Patrick Long GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R 5 1'26.171 10.997 24 44 Andy Lally
John Potter GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3 6 1'26.359 11.185 25 14 United Kingdom Jack Hawksworth
Aaron Telitz GTD Lexus RC F GT3 3 1'26.404 11.230 26 30 Rob Ferriol
Spencer Pumpelly GTD Audi R8 LMS GT3 7 1'26.791 11.617 27 74 United States Gar Robinson
Lawson Aschenbach GTD Mercedes-AMG GT3 8 1'29.460 14.286 28 911 Nick Tandy
France Frédéric Makowiecki GTLM Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2 1'32.856 17.682 View full results

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article IMSA Laguna Seca: Mazda moves to the top in FP2

Next article IMSA Laguna Seca: Castroneves, Taylor win after team orders

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

"It's horribly painful" - Williams drops 2026 car upgrades to benefit 2027

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

11 min

"It's horribly painful" - Williams drops 2026 car upgrades to benefit 2027

The lowdown on this year’s FIA F3 title protagonists

FIA F3

The lowdown on this year’s FIA F3 title protagonists

Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

1 h

Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26

The Kimi Antonelli you don't know: Inside the Mercedes garage with F1's new world champion

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

2 h

The Kimi Antonelli you don't know: Inside the Mercedes garage with F1's new world champion

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts