Rain at Watkins Glen cut short qualifying for the Rolex Series Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, ensuring that the Daytona Prototype field will line up for the start of the race according to points standings.
The rain, which fell during the gap between the GT and GX combined sessions and the start of DP qualifying reduced the 15 minutes of track time to additional practice, the decision to cancel qualifying having already handed Max Angelelli, Jordan Taylor and the Wayne Taylor Racing team their third consecutive pole position.
Starting the weekend just a point behind in the standings GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing will starts alongside them on the front row, Starworks Motorsport’s #2 will start third. The Starworks team are one of several bolstered by a third driver of the weekend, Sebastien Bourdais joining regular drivers Ryan Dalziel and Alex Popow.
Before the rain fell Robin Liddell claimed GT class pole position. The Scot was fastest early in the session, before being jumped by both Jeff Segal and Eric Curran. However, Stevenson Motorsport driver Liddell’s 1:52.583 lap of the longer Watkins Glen layout pushed them back to third and second in class respectively, Curran’s Marsh Racing Corvette completing another strong qualifying session for the GM brands in the class.
Segal, who will share the R.Ferri/AIM Motorsport Ferrari with both Max Papis and Toni Vilander, fell to third. They will start alongside the Audi Sport Customer Racing team of Filipe Alberquerque, Edoardo Mortara and Dion von Moltke, the trio reuniting in an Audi R8 Grand-Am in an effort to protect their North American Endurance Championship (NAEC) points lead as the Rolex Series’ ‘championship within a championship’ returns with its second race of the year following January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Sylvain Tremblay won the pole in the GX class in the #70 Mazda 6, the new car’s disastrous start to the season at Daytona now a distant memory as the Speedsource/MazdaSpeed teams seek fourth consecutive class win.
