Action Express Cadillacs sweep the front row for Rolex 24

John Dagys


Joao Barbosa will start the 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona from overall pole, leading an Action Express sweep of the front row in the new era of prototype racing in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Barbosa took his No. 5 Cadillac DPi-V.R to a best lap of 1:36.903 in qualifying, outpacing the sister No. 31 machine of defending P class champion Dane Cameron by 0.070 seconds.

Barbosa, who will share driving duties with Christian Fittipaldi and Filipe Albuquerque, went nearly one-second quicker than any team from pre-season testing or practice.

Neel Jani was the quickest of the LMP2-spec cars, in third overall, with a 1:37.123 lap set in his No. 13 Rebellion Racing Oreca 07 Gibson, bumping Ricky Taylor to fourth, after having provisionally topped the time sheets in the majority of the 15-minute session.

The No. 22 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan Onroak DPi of Brendon Hartley completed the top-five, seven-tenths slower than the pole-sitting Cadillac, with teammate Ryan Dalziel sixth.

Both of the Mazda RT24-Ps and the No. 90 Visit Florida Racing Riley Mk. 30 Gibson struggled, bringing up the rear.

Jonathan Bomarito’s 1:39.940 lap was more than three seconds off the pace from Barbosa’s pole-sitting time, and ended up ninth on the time sheets.

James French secured top qualifying honors in Prototype Challenge, denying Johnny Mowlem his third consecutive class pole at Daytona.

French reeled off a quick time of 1:42.559 on his final flying lap in the No. 38 Performance Tech Oreca FLM09 to edge out the No. 26 BAR1 entry of Johnny Mowlem by 0.837 seconds.

The Performance Tech and BAR1 entries were the only two PC entries to out-qualify the GT Le Mans class pole-sitting Ford GT of Joey Hand.

The No. 20 BAR1 car of Buddy Rice qualified third in class, with the two Starworks Motorsport entries bringing up the rear in the spec prototype class.

Joey Hand, meanwhile, led a top-three sweep for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing in GT Le Mans qualifying.

The Californian’s benchmark time of 1:43.473 in the No. 66 Ford GT was 0.231 seconds quicker than teammate Richard Westbrook’s No. 67 car, with Olivier Pla completing the top three in No. 68 Ford, despite a spin at the Horseshoe.

Hand will share driving duties with fellow 24 Hours of Le Mans class winners Dirk Mueller and Sebastien Bourdais, as part of Ford’s four-car effort for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-opener.

Toni Vilander will start fourth in the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE, ahead of the best-placed of the new Porsche 911 RSRs, the No. 911 driven by Patrick Pilet and Andy Priaulx’s No. 69 Ford.

Defending winners Corvette Racing could not match the pace of the front-running Fords and will start from seventh and ninth in class.

The No. 3 Corvette C7.R of Jan Magnussen was the quickest of the two, eight-tenths off pole, with Oliver Gavin’s No. 4 car a further four tenths behind.

The two BMW M6 GTLMs rounded out the field in 10th and 11th positions. Bill Auberlen in the No. 19 car and John Edwards’ No. 24 lapped 1.2 and 1.5 seconds respectively slower than Hand.

In GT Daytona, Ferrari 488 GT3s locked out the front row, as the No. 51 Sprit of Race entry driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi edged Scuderia Corsa’s Alessandro Balzan by a mere 0.018 seconds.

Pier Guidi rocketed to a quick time of 1:47.099 in the AF Corse-run Ferrari.

The single Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in the field, driven by FIA World Endurance Championship GT Drivers champion Marco Sorensen was the best of the rest, a full 0.635 seconds slower than Pier Guidi in third.

The Dane will share row two with the Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by Daytona rookie Matteo Cairoli, with Mirko Bortolotti’s Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 fifth and Connor De Phillippi sixth in the Land Motorsport Audi R8 LMS.

Defending GTD winner Andy Lally ensured Acura were the best of the newcomers in seventh, while 3GT Racing’s Scott Pruett was the fastest Lexus RC F GT3 driver in 13th in class.

The Mercedes-AMG teams decided against showing their hand in qualifying. Boris Said’s SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 was quickest of the three cars entered and will start 18th in the 27-car field.

Coverage of the 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona gets underway Saturday at 2 p.m. ET on FOX.