Autosportfoto

Daytona 24 Hours: Van der Zande on pole, Fernando Alonso 13th

New Cadillac driver Renger Van der Zande claimed a last-gasp pole position for the Daytona 24 Hours ahead of Penske's Helio Castroneves, as Fernando Alonso qualified 13th.

Van der Zande posted a 1m36.083s aboard the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R on his final qualifying lap to bump Penske Acura driver Castroneves from the top of the times by just seven thousandths of a second.

Castroneves had looked on course to take pole for the IMSA SportsCar Championship opener for much of the session, but he had already brought his ORECA-based Acura ARX-05 Daytona Prototype international into the pits when van der Zande knocked him off the top spot.

Renger van der Zande said: "I'm super thrilled to be here and didn't expect to grab this pole.

"I went wide at Turn 5, I outbraked myself, but somehow it managed to be a fast lap.

"To be snatching the pole was a bit of luck and balls out."

Filipe Albuquerque took third in the best of the Action Express Cadillacs with a 1m36.194s.

Patricio O'Ward claimed fourth spot with a late lap in his Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA-Gibson 07, the first of the pure LMP2 cars.

The Mexican's 1m36.318s just edged out Tristan Vautier in the Spirit of Daytona Cadillac to take a place on the second row.

Robin Frijns ended up sixth in the best of the Jota-run Jackie Chan DCR ORECAs, while Felipe Nasr took seventh in the second Action Express entry.

Jonathan Bomarito claimed ninth place in the only one of the Joest-run Mazda RT24-P DPis to take part in qualifying after the sister car that had topped first practice was hit by an undisclosed technical problem.

Two-time Formula 1 champion Alonso was less than a second off the pace in the fastest of the United Autosports Ligier-Gibson P217s, though his 1m37.008s was only good for 13th position.

Neither of the Extreme Speed Motorsports Onroak Nissan DPis set a representative time.

Nicolas Lapierre went off on his first hot lap in the #18 entry and damaged the left front suspension, while the sister car didn't take part in qualifying because it was undergoing an engine change.

Chevrolet driver Jan Magnussen began the defence of the GT Le Mans class IMSA title he won last season with Antonio Garcia by taking pole position for Daytona.

Magnussen put in a best time of 1m42.779s aboard his Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, which left him just over two hundredths of a second up on Joey Hand in the best of the Ganassi Ford GTs.

Hand's 1m42.798s was a little under two tenths up on the third-placed Porsche 911 RSR of Laurens Vanthoor, who jumped ahead of team-mate Patrick Pilet in the closing seconds of the session.

The second of the Ganassi Fords ended up fourth in Richard Westbrook's hands.

The solo GTLM class Ferrari took seventh with Toni Vilander, while the two new BMW M8 GTEs brought up the rear.

The best BMW time from Alexander Sims was 1.2 seconds off the class pole.

Daniel Serra took the top spot in GT Daytona for the AF Corse-run Spirit of Race Ferrari squad.

The Brazilian posted two laps good enough for the class pole in his Ferrari 488 GTE, a 1m46.049s giving him the top spot by nearly half a second.

Ferrari factory driver Miguel Molina ended up second for the Risi Ferrari team on a 1m46.502s.

Zdroj: autosport.com