Petit Le Mans: Derani takes pole in thrilling qualifying session

Prototype

Derani laid down a 1min10.437sec lap of the 2.54-mile Road Atlanta course, which not only eclipsed teammate Norman Nato by 0.338sec, but also kept him 0.124sec and 0.163sec clear of the Mazda RT24-Ps of Oliver Jarvis and Jonathan Bomarito.

The latter survived a brief off-course excursion in the opening minutes and some ragged moments while the tires were at their prime but came up four hundredths short of his teammate.

Said Derani: "In any race, it’s important to start up front, but this one has a special feeling, especially for myself. This is my last race with the team, and ESM’s last race with Tequila Patron.

"It’s very emotional for the entire team, and it shows how hard we’ve been working the last three years.

"When I joined the team, we had lots of highs. What better way to finish an era than to start on pole?! We still have the race tomorrow, but I’m happy and grateful for the car they’ve given me to get on pole position."

The Acura Team Penske ARX-05 of Ricky Taylor was 0.343sec off the ultimate pace but that was enough to beat the best of the Cadillacs, Filipe Albuquerque’s #5 Action Express Racing entry, for fifth behind the second ESM Nissan.

Lead P2 car was Simon Trummer’s JDC-Miller Motorsports Oreca, which beat Juan Pablo Montoya in the second Acura by a handful of hundreths.

Felipe Nasr claimed ninth in the second AXR Caddy with Colin Braun rounding out the top 10 with the CORE autosport Oreca, 0.634sec from P1.

GT Le Mans

On the back of two straight GTLM victories, the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-run BMW M8 remained on top during qualifying, with John Edwards grabbing pole with 1min17.006sec to snatch pole from Antonio Garcia’s championship-leading Corvette C7.R by just 0.024sec.

Earl Bamber was a couple of tenths slower in the faster of the two Porsche 911 RSRs ahead of Richard Westbrook in the best of the Ford GTs, while Patrick Pilet will line up fifth, alongside the second Ford of Joey Hand.

Connor De Phillippi was seventh in the second BMW, ahead of Tommy Milner’s best in the #4 Corvette, and Toni Vilander in the returning Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE.

GT Daytona

Daniel Serra put the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 on top and set a new GTD track record, a 1min19.695sec, a target at which Jack Hawksworth of 3GT Racing fell 0.037sec short, with Sheldon van der Linde’s Land Motorsport Audi R8 0.049sec adrift.

Mario Farnbacher was fastest of the two Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSXs, grabbing fourth ahead of title contenders Bryan Sellers (Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan) and Katherine Legge, whose NSX was qualified by usual co-driver Alvaro Parente.

Matteo Cressoni took seventh in the second Scuderia Corsa 488 ahead of Dominik Baumann in the second Lexus.

Ben Keating pulled his Riley Mercedes AMG GT off track mid-session, while Wright Motorsports didn’t even participate in the session in order to start the race on a fresh set of Continentals.

Qualifying results:

Cla	Num	Driver	Class	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	22	Timo Bernhard Pipo Derani Johannes van Overbeek	P	Nissan DPi	7	1'10.437			129.818
2	77	Lucas di Grassi Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez	P	Mazda DPi	11	1'10.561	0.124	0.124	129.590
3	55	Spencer Pigot Jonathan Bomarito Marino Franchitti	P	Mazda DPi	10	1'10.600	0.163	0.039	129.518
4	2	Scott Sharp Ryan Dalziel Norman Nato	P	Nissan DPi	8	1'10.775	0.338	0.175	129.198
5	7	Helio Castroneves Graham Rahal Ricky Taylor	P	Acura DPi	8	1'10.780	0.343	0.005	129.189
6	5	Christian Fittipaldi Filipe Albuquerque Tristan Vautier	P	Cadillac DPi	11	1'10.892	0.455	0.112	128.985
7	85	Simon Trummer Robert Alon Devlin DeFrancesco	P	ORECA LMP2	9	1'10.912	0.475	0.020	128.949
8	6	Juan Pablo Montoya Simon Pagenaud Dane Cameron	P	Acura DPi	6	1'10.947	0.510	0.035	128.885
9	31	Eric Curran Gabby Chaves Felipe Nasr	P	Cadillac DPi	10	1'10.981	0.544	0.034	128.823
10	54	Romain Dumas Jon Bennett Colin Braun	P	ORECA LMP2	11	1'11.071	0.634	0.090	128.660
11	99	Mikhail Goikhberg Chris Miller Stephen Simpson	P	ORECA LMP2	11	1'11.151	0.714	0.080	128.515
12	10	Jordan Taylor Ryan Hunter-Reay Renger van der Zande	P	Cadillac DPi	8	1'11.468	1.031	0.317	127.945
13	52	Jose Gutierrez Sebastian Saavedra Will Owen	P	ORECA LMP2	11	1'11.708	1.271	0.240	127.517
14	38	James French Nicholas Boulle Kyle Masson	P	ORECA LMP2	11	1'11.859	1.422	0.151	127.249
15	24	John Edwards  Jesse Krohn Chaz Mostert	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	6	1'17.006	6.569	5.147	118.744
16	3	Jan Magnussen Marcel Fassler Antonio Garcia	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	9	1'17.030	6.593	0.024	118.707
17	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor Mathieu Jaminet	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	9	1'17.209	6.772	0.179	118.432
18	67	Ryan Briscoe Scott Dixon Richard Westbrook	GTLM	Ford GT	6	1'17.220	6.783	0.011	118.415
19	911	Nick Tandy Patrick Pilet Frédéric Makowiecki	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	8	1'17.369	6.932	0.149	118.187
20	66	Sébastien Bourdais Joey Hand Dirk Muller	GTLM	Ford GT	6	1'17.383	6.946	0.014	118.165
21	25	Bill Auberlen Connor de Phillippi Alexander Sims	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	6	1'17.428	6.991	0.045	118.097
22	4	Marcel Fassler Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	10	1'17.451	7.014	0.023	118.062
23	62	Toni Vilander Andrea Bertolini Miguel Molina	GTLM	Ferrari 488 GTE	11	1'17.774	7.337	0.323	117.571
24	63	Daniel Serra Cooper MacNeil Gunnar Jeannette	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	6	1'19.695	9.258	1.921	114.737
25	15	David Heinemeier Hansson Jack Hawksworth Sean Rayhall	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	5	1'19.732	9.295	0.037	114.684
26	29	Daniel Morad Christopher Mies Sheldon Van Der Linde	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	8	1'19.744	9.307	0.012	114.667
27	93	Justin Marks Lawson Aschenbach Mario Farnbacher	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	7	1'19.877	9.440	0.133	114.476
28	48	Corey Lewis Bryan Sellers Madison Snow	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	6	1'20.079	9.642	0.202	114.187
29	86	Alvaro Parente Katherine Legge Trent Hindman	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	8	1'20.095	9.658	0.016	114.164
30	64	Matteo Cressoni Townsend Bell Frankie Montecalvo	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	6	1'20.297	9.860	0.202	113.877
31	14	Kyle Marcelli Dominik Baumann Philipp Frommenwiler	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	8	1'20.366	9.929	0.069	113.779
32	33	Jeroen Bleekemolen Ben Keating Luca Stolz	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	5	1'20.587	10.150	0.221	113.467
33	71	Maximilian Buhk JC Perez Felipe Fraga	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	10	1'21.580	11.143	0.993	112.086
34	96	Don Yount Markus Palttala Dillon Machavern	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	6	1'21.650	11.213	0.070	111.990
35	44	Andy Lally Andrew Davis John Potter	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	10	1'21.895	11.458	0.245	111.655
36	73	Wolf Henzler Tim Pappas Spencer Pumpelly	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	11	1'22.610	12.173	0.715	110.689
37	58	Patrick Long Christina Nielsen Robert Renauer	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R