Pipo Derani set an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship track record at Road America, qualifying first in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Action Express Cadillac.
Derani’s lap of 1 minute, 47.730 seconds shattered the previous record (set in 2019) by nearly a second on the recently repaved road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (where records were set in three more categories: LMP3, GTD Pro, GTD).
It’s the ninth career pole position for Derani in the premier prototype category and the second this season for Cadillac in the rebranded Grand Touring Prototype hybrid division.
STARTING GRID: Click here for the starting lineup at Road America
IMSA AT ROAD AMERICA: Details, schedules for watching Sunday’s race
“Coming into this race with a new tarmac you want to be ahead because it’s hard to overtake the GTs, so you can perhaps control the race a bit better,” said Derani, who will be teamed with Alexander Sims. “A lot can happen in the race; we know that in IMSA with the yellows and everything. We try to go session by session, and I think we’ve been doing that quite well.”
Matt Campbell, who co-drives with Felipe Nasr, qualified second in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, and Sebastien Bourdais qualified third in the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R that he shares with Renger van der Zande.
Filipe Albuquerque was the top Acura ARX-06 in fourth, followed by the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Connor De Phillippi, the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Colin Braun, the No. 6 Porsche 963 of Nick Tandy, the No. 24 BMW of Philipp Eng, the No. 5 Porsche of Mike Rockenfeller and the No. 59 Porsche of Gimmii Bruni.
Here are the pole-sitters in other categories for the two-hour, 40-minute race on the 14-turn, 4.048-mile road course:
LMP2: George Kurtz, No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing ORECA LMP2 07, 1:53.621
LMP3: Nico Pino, No. 33 Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier JS P 320, 1:57.930
GTD PRO: Alex Riberas, No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3, 2:02.918
GTD: Madison Snow, No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3, 2:03.291
QUALIFYING
Results
Results by class
Fastest lap by driver
Fastest lap by driver after qualifying
Fastest lap by driver and class after qualifying
Best sector times
Fastest lap sequence
Time cards
