Daniel Morad stormed to Pole Position in today’s PWC SprintX Qualifying session driving the #2 CRP Mercedes AMG GT3. The Canadian set a 1:41.953 lap, a provisional track record to take the top grid slot. It was almost a full second faster than last year’s track mark set by Mike Skeen, a 1:42.989.
“I’m so happy with that lap,” said Morad, who also won at COTA in GT SprintX in 2017. “It was probably one of the best laps of my life. It’s too bad because right before that lap, I had another one that was going well, but I was blocked by Jeff Segal. It was a bit unfortunate, but I knew I had to gather it up. I took a cool down lap and pushed for one more.
“The Mercedes-AMG GT3 was perfect today. We made one set-up change just before qualifying based on the conditions. We knew the pace was going to be really high today, so we took a risk and it paid off. We’re in the best place in the house to start. We’ll see if we can repeat our win from last year.”
And it wasn’t just Morad who broke the previous record, as in the end the top seven drivers managed to better the 2017 time. Skeen, last year’s record holder, was best of the rest, and just missed out on pole with a 1:42.041 in the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG. Skeen will co-driver this weekend with Scott Heckert, also of Charlotte.
Third on the GT SprintX grid was Am driver Rodrigo Baptista of Brazil in the #3 K-PAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3 with a 1:42.251. The young racer is teaming up with veteran Bentley driver Maxime Soulet of Spain this weekend at VIR.
Rounding out the top-five in the GT SprintX qualifying was 2016 GT champion Alvaro Parente in the sister #9 K-RAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3 with a 1:42.251 and current GT overall points leader Scott Hargrove, driving the #96 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R with a 1:42.377. Parente will partner with Spain’s Andy Soucek, while veteran Wolf Henzler teams with Hargrove this weekend.
After Baptista and Soulet in the GT SprintX Pro-Am division in qualifying was the #19 TruSpeed Motorsports Audi of 17-year-old Parker Chase with a 1:43.717 followed by Wei Lu’s TR3 Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 with a 1:43.971 and the Dream Racing Lamborghini Huracan of Long Beach GTA winner Yuki Harata.
Caeser Bacarella topped the Am class in the #07 Squadra Corse Garage Italia Ferrari 488 GT3 thanks to a 1:44.557, whilst Ryan Hardwick was quickest in the GT Cup division in the #27 Dream Racing Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo, his time a 1:48.023.
Features image courtesy of PWC
