Yahoo Autos Derani leads all-Cadillac Sebring front row after interrupted qualifying
Despite an Acura posting the fastest time in an abbreviated qualifying session, it will be an all-Cadillac front row for the start of the 72nd Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Cadillac. Pipo Derani had the second-best time for Whelen Cadillac Racing in the No. 31 V-Series.R, but when Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti lost all the times for the No. 10 Acura ARX-06 — including Ricky Taylor’s best of 1m48.038s — for working on the car during qualifying, Derani’s 1m48.152s lap stood for pole. It’s Derani’s second pole of 2024, and his second consecutive Sebring pole.
Mathieu Jaminet crashed the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 with six minutes run in the 15-minute session, bringing out a red flag. Jaminet put the right-side wheels off at the exit of Turn 1, causing the car to snap left and hit the wall, leaving the PPM crew a bit of work to do before tomorrow’s 9:40am race start.
The red flag left drivers little time — less than four minutes — to bring the tires up to temperature and put in a flyer. Normally they would allow several laps to bring the tires in, but they had only an out lap before they had to put a lap on the board.
“It was a difficult qualifying session,” said Derani. “It’s never easy when you have a red-flag situation where you have to put the lap in. I was told over the radio that I could potentially grab a second flying lap if I pushed, so I obviously I pushed, but I was way too close for comfort to the No. 40 Acura [driven by Louis Deletraz]. He made a few mistakes in front of me so I lost a little bit of time having to control that distance to try and make sure I guaranteed a lap in case I didn’t have a second one.”
Derani attempted a second flyer, on which he was ahead on the predictive timing, but got too close to Deletraz and had to abort it.
“For sure there is more from the lap time, but nevertheless it looks like it was enough to be on pole,” he said. “It’s never the nicest way to get a pole, for everybody, that no one was able to achieve the full potential of their cars. But nevertheless, it’s still the same for everyone. You still have to put a lap in and make sure that you you make no mistakes in such a pressured situation.”
Sebastien Bourdais will start alongside in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R to repeat the Cadillac front-row lockout not only from the season-opening race at Daytona, but last year’s Sebring as well. Bourdais’s best was 0.147s off Derani.
The interrupted session produced an unusual and jumbled grid beyond the front row. Philipp Eng qualified the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 third with a 1m48.829s, and the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 will start outside the second row courtesy of Phil Hanson, who posted the fastest lap of yesterday’s practice sessions and had the fastest lap when qualifying was red flagged. The other privateer Porsche, the No. 5 Proton Competition 963, will start inside the third row thanks to Julien Andlauer, and Deletraz put the No. 40 Acura ARX-06 on the outside. Row four will be the No. 7 PPM 963 (Felipe Nasr) and the No. 63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63 (Matteo Cairoli).
PJ Hyett shocked the LMP2 field by scoring his first pole position for only his second race in the category. His 1m52.142s in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA nicknamed “Spike” was 0.171s better than Dan Goldburg in the No. 22 United Autosports ORECA that will start on the outside of the second row in a session that ended under a red flag with just over 30 seconds left.
“There’s a lot of emotions going through me right now, just because of how special this feels,” said Hyett. “Yeah, the dragon was definitely breathing fire today, I’ll say that.
“The really cool thing about what’s happened this season between [The No. 77 GTD PRO Porsche 911 GT3 R] ‘Rexy’ on pole at Daytona and ‘Spike’ now at Sebring, is that we tried to build his team in a new, fun way to attract a whole new generation of fans and get people excited about these fun-loving characters racing around the racetrack. To be able to back that up with really strong performances in qualifying to show we’re not just screwing around — we’re out here trying to win, get poles and we’ve been able to do that this year. So it’s it’s been a lot of work, a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, but I love that we’ve been able to now marry our fun new approach to sports car racing with actual results.”
Goldburg’s United teammate Ben Keating had a 1m52.673s to qualify the No. 2 ORECA third, 0.092s ahead of Nick Boulle in the No. 52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports entry. Gar Robinson (No. 74 Riley Motorsports) and George Kurtz (No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR) completed the top six.
Hawksworth was good as gold with the Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 as he rocketed to GTD PRO pole. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images
GTD PRO quick lapper Jack Hawksworth set a new lap record of 1m58.714s in his No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3. The old GTD PRO record of 1m59.315s was set last year by Antonio Garcia for Corvette Racing. Hawksworth held the three-year-old GTD record, a 1m58.217s.
“It’s really hot today, so how you bring your tires in, and the peak of the tire, that window is smaller than it would be if it was 60 or 70 Fahrenheit,” related Hawksworth. “The team did a really good job kind of dropping me into a nice gap, so I had a completely clear track and could kind of bring my tires in the way I wanted to and then could put a nice lap in, so that was good.
“The whole weekend has been really good so far. We actually struggled a little bit with setup early on, not feeling super-comfy. And then last night, we found a couple of things and ever since then we’ve felt pretty good. So I’m excited for the race tomorrow and looking forward to it.”
The GTD-class No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG was to start alongside after Philip Ellis set a 1m58.778s, but the car’s times were subsequently disallowed when the post-qualifying technical inspection revealed that it was carrying non-permitted sensors.
In its place will be another GTD car, Antonio Fuoco producing a 1m59.014s in the No. 47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296 to better Parker Thompson in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F by 0.129s.
Mario Farnbacher was the next GTD PRO driver on the time sheet, posting a 1m59.264s in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage Evo. Mikael Grenier was next in No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes AMG; the last GTD car before a string of six GTD PRO cars.
The No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (Seb Priaulx) and No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R (Alexander Sims) led that group, with No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 (Madison Snow) and the No. 04 Corvette Z06 GT3.R (Tommy Milner) behind.
This story has been updated since it was first published to include the No. 57 entry having its times disallowed.
UP NEXT: The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring starts at 9:40am ET.
