BMW snatched pole position for the Daytona 24 Hours during an interrupted qualifying session for this weekend's IMSA SportsCar Championship season-opener.
Dries Vanthoor jumped to the top of the times on his final lap in the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh run by the Rahal team to knock Meyer Shank Racing Acura driver Nick Yelloly off the pole.
Vanthoor’s 1m33.895s gave him a margin of nearly three tenths over former BMW driver Yelloly, who posted a 1m34.186s in the dramatic final stages of the 15-minute session on Thursday.
“It was not easy with the red flag; it made tyre warming a bit difficult,” said Vanthoor, who also set the fastest during last weekend’s official pre-event Roar test.
“We’ve been improving on that - it was a bit of a struggle point last year.
“Then it was about getting the lap together.”
Running was restricted when the #25 BMW with Sheldon van der Linde at the wheel stopped on track for so far undisclosed reasons at the end of the infield, resulting in a short stoppage while the clock continued to run.
Felipe Nasr took third for 2024 Daytona winner Porsche, his 1m34.280s in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry leaving him nearly four tenths off the pace.
Cadillac took a step forward from the Roar after a mid-week Balance of Performance change in which it has gained 20kW or 26bhp in its baseline power output, Jack Aitken taking fourth in the Action Express Racing entry.
The Briton’s 1m34.350s in the best of the Caddy V-Series.R LMDhs snuck him ahead of Gianmaria Bruni in the JDC-Miller Motorsports customer Porsche, which lapped in 1m34.374s.
Tom Blomqvist had sat at the top of the times starting his final lap on 1m34.432 in the #60 Shank Acura, but he was unable to improve after he came up Mirko Bortolotti in the solo Lamborghini SC63 LMDh as he swept up onto the banking after the infield.
The two cars appeared to make the lightest of contacts in the incident, which resulted in Blomqvist aborting his lap.
Filipe Albuquerque was fastest of the Wayne Taylor Racing entries on the multiple Daytona-winning team’s return to Cadillac.
The Portuguese driver took seventh with a 1m34.933s, which was just two hundredths ahead of team-mate Louis Deletraz.
Bortolotti was ninth fastest in the Lambo, while the second PPM entry was tenth in Matt Campbell’s hands.
United Autosports topped the times in LMP2 with its #22 ORECA-Gibson 07 driven by Daniel Goldburg.
A 1m38.676s from the American gave him a margin of just over three tenths ahead of Ben Keating.
The PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports driver looked on course for a sixth consecutive P2 pole with a 1m39.000s before he was demoted to second by Goldburg.
Nick Boulle made it a 1-3 qualifying result for United with 1m39.203s in the team’s #2 entry.
He benefitted from the demotion of PJ Hyett in the AO Racing ORECA after he lost his fastest two lap times for causing the session to be red-flagged in its final seconds.
Hyett dropped to sixth behind Chris Cumming and Steven Thomas in their respective Pratt Miller Motorsports and TDS Racing ORECAs.
Ford blocked out the front row in GT Daytona Pro with its Mustang GT3, Mike Rockenfeller leading the way from Frederic Vervisch.
Rockenfeller set two laps good enough for the pole, ending up on a 1m45.523s in the #64 Multimatic Motorsport entry.
That gave him an advantage of three tenths over Vervisch’s 1m45.855s in the sister #65 car.
BMW took third place with Dan Harper in the #48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 Evo with a 1m46.005s.
Alexander Sims was just seven thousandths behind on 1m46.012s in the #3 Chevrolet Corvette Z06.GT3.
Lamborghini ended up fifth with the Pfaff Motorsport Huracan GT3 EVO2 driven by Andrea Caldarelli ahead of Tommy Milner in the #4 Corvette Racing entry.
Porsche claimed class honours in the regular GTD class with Elliott Skeer driving the Wright Motorsports 911 GT3-R.
A 1m46.634s gave the American, winner of the GT World Challenge America last year, the top spot by less than two hundredths of a second over Philip Ellis in the Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Trent Hindman was just six thousandths behind in third aboard the Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.
The Rolex 24 meeting at Daytona resumes at 18:30 local time with the 90-minute night practice session.
