Sunny and clear conditions welcomed the teams to Mosport for Saturday’s agenda of an hour of practice and qualifying sessions for each of the prototype, prototype challenge and GTLM classes.
Practice saw all cars out early and setting times. Cars without problems did in excess of 30 laps, searching for comfortable setups for qualifying and the race.
Four prototype cars set times below the 1:10 mark. Dane Cameron was the first, but Christian Fittipaldi, Ozz Negri and Scott Pruett followed. Negri ended up setting the fastest time of the session with a 1.09.168, but a pole run for Negri was not in the cards as co-driver John Pew would qualify the car later.
Nick Tandy sat atop the practice sheets for GTLM for the entire session. All GTLM cars were quick, setting times below the 2014 qualifying time of 1:15.206 in hands of Kuno Wittmer and his Viper.
John Edwards was happy to get some running after losing time on Friday due to the off-course excursion, noting that “We weren’t very happy with balance of our car, so we had a lot of room to make improvements overnight. Qualifying here is pretty important because this place is a difficult place to pass, mostly because it is difficult to follow.”
Practice was eventful. The Porsche #912 had one and possibly two meetings with immovable curbs, requiring two nose changes to replace damaged splitters. Dane Cameron in the #31 Action Express Corvette had a dispute over real estate with the #52 PR1/Mathiasen prototype challenge car of Mike Gausch at turn 5. The rub marks on right rear of the #31 with paint matching the front of the #52 showed the results of the dispute. The contact loosened the front bodywork of the #52 and damaged the steering which put an end to its practice running. The CORE autosport #54 turned the fewest laps of any car, ending their session early to work on an undisclosed issue which was cured for qualifying.
Qualifying involves some strategy decisions as the driver who qualifies must start the car in the race and must start on the tires used for qualifying. It turned out that teams ran more laps that might have been expected which is perhaps a sign of good tire life for the race.
Ollie Gavin in the #4 Corvette was first on track to get the GTLM session underway. The factory Porsche duo and the pair of BMW Z4 entries waited a bit before leaving pit lane. The delay would prove to be the right strategy call.
Nick Tandy claimed the top spot mid-way through the session and remained on pole position through the end of the session, barely edging Dirk Werner by 0.028 of a second.
Tandy confirmed later that the delayed start was an intentional decision saying “We waited for some of the other cars to clear the previous race rubbers off the circuit and put some Michelin rubber down. Judging by the top 3 cars, at least we were the last 3 cars to go out, so that was a good tactic by the team. We were surprised at how fast the pace was today, we knew the track temperature would be high. It doesn’t suit the Porsche really, it likes the cooler temperatures, but the car was working nice and well.”
Until Tandy’s effort, there had been no repeat drivers winning pole in GTLM in 2015. The top three qualifiers were faster than the prior track record and less than three quarters of a second separated the entire field. Werner and Lucas Luhr filled out the top three in their BMW Z4 entries with Luhr undoubtedly was looking to make up for damaging the car in first practice. Pierre Kaffer was fourth in the Risi Ferrari.
The Corvettes completed the most laps, but laps did not equate to speed. Jan Magunssen and Ollie Gavin will be starting from fifth and seventh respectively. Gavin later suggested that that they just missed the setup with tire pressures, due in part to the rubber laid down in the Continental support race that finished just before qualifying. Magnussen echoed the frustration saying “The track was in really poor condition compared to what we had this morning. For sure the Continental Tire series race put down a lot of rubber, and it got warmer which makes it just slippery and unresponsive. It’s a little bit frustrating, to be honest. We lost a second from this morning. This is not what we had hoped for. I think we have a better Corvette C7.R than this. Hopefully it will show in the race.”
Consistent with pace in practice regardless of the driver, the Falken Porsche will bring up the rear of the field but still only seven tenths off the pole pace.
The prototype challenge qualifying session featured the amateur drivers rather than the professionals (by coincidence of individual team choice, not by rule). Chris Cumming in the #11 RSR Racing car and Jon Bennett in the #54 CORE autosport car sat atop the charts for the bulk of the session with Cumming setting a fast lap and then incrementally improving bit by bit with more laps.
Cumming appeared to have claimed pole until James French in the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry leaped to the top of the table to steal the pole at the last moment by a very slim margin of only 0.032 of a second. French and Cumming ended the session as the only cars below the 1:13 threshold.
French could barely string words together when he was interviewed by Shea Adam on IMSA Radio. “I think this is a great result for us,” he said later when he caught his breath. “It’s a great place to start for tomorrow. It’s starting to seem very reminiscent of Detroit [where he previously claimed pole], so if we can continue that trend, I think we will have a very good day tomorrow.”
The VisitFlorida #90 Corvette DP took to the track first in the hands of Michael Valiante to open qualifying for the prototypes. Scott Pruett in the #01 Ganassi car established position at the top after only a few laps with Ricky Taylor only a sliver behind. Ricky picked up momentum and leapfrogged Pruett to take the top spot on his eighth lap. Pruett tried hard to improve and spent several laps worth of tire life, but the car kept getting sideways in turn 5 which prevented further progress. Ricky said later that he actually got balked on his fast lap and made a mistake in the last turn which makes the speed even more impressive. With the top spot, Ricky repeated his prior pole winning performance in Long Beach.
Taylor later said “The car has been really fast this weekend, especially in race trim. We want to carry that on to tomorrow. I think tomorrow it’s going to be interesting. Times have been really close all weekend.” He continued
“It’s going to be tough to overtake, and even more tough in traffic. It will be all about taking risks, and keeping a gap. I need to just keep the car in one piece to hand it over to Jordan so he can be competitive against Westbrook.”
The dice for the lower qualifying positions was also good fun in the prototype class. John Pew in the #60 Shank Ligier/Honda P2 and Michael Valiante in the #90 traded positions quite a bit in the last laps. Pew gained time with each lap during the session, but Valiante ended up ahead.
The #90 VisitFlorida Corvette struggled in practice at Mosport (and in the dry at Watkins Glen), so there is work to be done. The fourth place qualifying slot on Valiante’s last lap was a minor victory for the team.
It is always dangerous for a journalist to attempt math, but your trusty scribe ran some numbers and figures that the gap at the top of the field for the GTLM and prototype challenge cars equates to less than two meters worth of track length for either car at Mosport speeds. The margins are literally the amount of time it takes to blink an eye.
With an average around 120 miles per hour, that ought to give some perspective of the slim margins involved. The 9 meter margin distance for the prototype class with its 0.159 second gap seems almost gaping in comparison.
Sunday is expected to be dry, but perhaps a little cloudy which could reduce track temps from what the teams experienced on Saturday.
Kevin Ehrlich
