Scott Dixon will start the 2020 edition of the Sebring 12 Hour from the front row of the grid with the two championship protagonists starting alongside each other for the final race of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar championship.
Pole was sealed by Ricky Taylor of Acura Team Penske who put in a late effort to edge out Dixon’s teammate Renger van der Zande by 0.251s.
That’s a great start, being on the front row,” said van der Zande.
“It’s going to be a long race. Qualifying isn’t that important for a long race, but it shows where you are in terms of the speed of the car compared to the others.”
Just a mere 0.015s behind the pair was Dane Cameron in the second Acura Penske machine. They will instead share the second row with Sebastian Bourdais in Mustang Sampling Racing.
After a dominant display of supremacy in all three of yesterday’s practice sessions, Earl Bamber and the Porsche GT Le Mans squad floundered in qualifying.
It was more of a case of their rivals turning up the wick over the Porsche duo losing time. Still, Bamber will start a lowly fifth and sixth in class as the Kiwi gears up for double duty this weekend. It was a disappointing final qualifying for the Porsche team who bow out to the sport at the end of this weekend.
Instead, pole was convincingly captured by champion elect Antonio Garcia in the Corvette C8.R who finished six-tenths quicker than his nearest challenger. It marks five successive pole positions for the Corvette team who surged out of the blocks at the start of the season as the manufacturer to beat, maintaining that level of dominance all year as they eased to the championship crown.
After struggling, for the most part this season, BMW locked out P2 and P3 in class to split the two Corvettes.
The larger GT Daytona field experienced an unusual case of the fastest lap time being set in the opening moments of the session.
Ex-Champ Car racer Jan Heylen in a Porsche 911 GT3 R posted a 2.00.844 on his first flying lap. He and the team then banked on the time, sitting out the rest of the session.
When the chequered flag flew to wrap up proceedings, the nearest competitor was Andrew Davis who finished some seven-tenths adrift.
The Sebring 12 Hour is scheduled to begin on Sunday, November 15, at 4.10 am NZT.