Coble: Acura moves to Rolex 24 Hour pole after Cadillac flunks inspection

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PHOTO COURTESY OF IMSA

The Acura ARX-06 driven by Renger van der Zande was moved up to the pole position for Saturday's Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona after the Cadillac V-Series.R failed inspection late Thursday.



DAYTONA BEACH – Renger van der Zande’s Acura ARX-06 already made a significant pass for the lead nearly two days before the start of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona sports car race at the Daytona International Speedway.

The GT Prototype was moved from second to the pole position late Thursday after the No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.R driven by Jack Aitken failed post qualifying inspection with a rear friction skid block was ground down too far, making it too low.

Van der Zande will share the driving duties with Nick Yelloly, Alex Palou and Kaku Ohta in the Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian car. The driving tandem comes from the Netherlands, Great Britian, Spain and Japan.

The Acura was clocked at 136.281 mph on the 3.56-mile road course that utilizes a twisting, flat infield course and most of the high banks of the superspeedway.

The Cadillac for Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz and Colton Herta moved to the second starting position with a qualifying speed of 136.240 mph, followed by the Penske Porsche 963 with Felipe Nasr, Julien Andiauer and Laurin Heinrich (136.075 mph) in third, another Meyer Shank Acura with Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Scott Dixon and AJ Almendinger in fourth (136 mph) and a Penske Porsche with Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Matt Campbell in fifth (135.770 mph).

The Aitken, Earl Bamber, Frederik Vesti and Connor Zilisch Cadillac was dropped to last of the 11 Grand Touring Prototypes in the 60-car field.

All four of the top IMSA classes participate in the twice-around-the-clock race that takes the green flag on Saturday at 1:40 p.m. (NBC, Peacock). The quickest Le Mans Prototype 2 was 12th overall – an ORECA for Tom Dillmann, Bijoy Garg, Antonio Felix da Costa and Jeremy Clarke at 128.221 mph.

Antonio Garcia, Alexander Sims and Marvin Kirchhofer will start 25th overall in at Corvette Z06 GT3.R, but first among the GT Daytona Pros, while Tom Gamble, Dudu Barrichello, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo will be 26th on the grid and first of the GT Daytonas.

NOTES: The full field of 60 cars includes 11 GT Prototypes, 13 Le Mans Prototypes 2, 15 GT Daytona Pros and 21 GT Daytonas include 228 drivers from 32 countries. The list of drivers is diverse – former Daytona 24-hour overall winners (Scott Dixon, AJ Allmendinger, Jordan Taylor, Renger van der Zande, Ricky Taylor, Tom Blomqvist, Felipe Nasr, Felipe Albuquerque, Oliver Jarvis, Colin Braun, Matt Campbell, Dane Cameron, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoors), four Indianapolis 500 winners (Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Will Power and Marcus Ericsson) and 10 with Formula 1 experience (Nasr, Will Stevens, Kevin Magnussen, Jack Aitken, Sebastien Bourdais, Logan Sargeat, Paul Di Resta, Pietro Fittipaldi, Romain Grosjean and Ericsson), while Allmendinger and Connor Zilisch represent NASCAR … while the majority of the country is being threatened by a massive snow and ice storm, the forecast for Daytona Beach couldn’t be any better. The expected temperature for the start of the race is about 75 degrees, with a low during the night of about 60 and a high of about 80 degrees at the checkered flag at 1:40 p.m. on Sunday. Rain is forecast about 10 hours after the race.


 

 

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