The world endurance racing season kicks off this weekend with the traditional Daytona 24 Hours marathon at Florida’s Daytona International Speedway.
But qualifying took place yesterday and it has received a lot of attention as, for the first time ever, the US IMSA Championship was contested by drivers driving the latest LMDh-class sports prototypes from factory teams Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche. As this championship has its own specificities, these hybrid powerplant cars are combined here in the GTP (Grand Touring Prototype) category, but these are the same sports prototypes that will compete in the WEC.
Sunday’s qualification in this class was won by Tom Blomkvist, an experienced Swede born in the United Kingdom and living in New Zealand. Tom drives Meyer Shank Racing’s Acura ARX-06 and set his best lap in 1 minute. 34.031 seconds, only 83 thousandths ahead of Felipe Nasra.
The Brazilian ex-Formula 1 driver has long and successfully raced in the IMSA series and has been driving a Porsche 963 of the Porsche Penske Motorsport team since this year. Felipe’s crew starts second, while Ricky Taylor, driving an Acura for Wayne Taylor Racing, takes third.
Blomqvist’s challenge was complicated by the fact that she was stopped by red flags shortly before the end of the session following the crash of Nick Tandy, another Porsche works team driver. When the races resumed, the qualifying participants only had time for one decisive attempt, but Tom did an excellent job, although he later complained that he did not even have time to properly warm up the tyres.
“It was one of the toughest sessions I’ve had because my tires weren’t quite ready and I didn’t even have a good reference, so I’m happy to get pole,” said a satisfied Blomqvist, who won qualifying . for the first time in his career at Daytona.
As a result, two teams on Acura sports prototypes, a Porsche car and three Cadillacs will start from the front three rows (each with three cars) at Daytona this Saturday. The BMW works team’s drivers were only 7th and 8th, but that doesn’t mean they’re much slower: first and eighth times are just 0.815 seconds apart.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
