Ricky Taylor gave Wayne Taylor Racing its second pole position of 2016 at the Austin round of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.
Taylor’s 1:58.712s flying lap was enough to nudge the two Mazda LMP2s into second and third, with Tristan Nunez qualifying the #55 car in second just 0.003 seconds off the pace. Taylor will share the #10 Corvette DP with brother Jordan in Saturday’s 2 hours 45 minute race.
Joel Miller finished third in the #70 Mazda with a 1:59.120 effort, beating the two Action Express Corvette DPs which had led all three of the free practice sessions.
Eric Curran qualified fourth in the #31 car, edging out team-mate and title rival Christian Fittipaldi by 0.222 seconds.
Sixth was the DeltaWing, with the Visit Florida Corvette DP and the Michael Shank Racing Ligier-Honda completing the order.
In GT Le Mans, Ryan Briscoe scored the #67 Ford GT’s third pole position of the year. It was the first pole for Briscoe, who usually stands back for Richard Westbrook during qualifying.
The Australian driver’s best time of 2:04.188s put him three tenths clear of the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 driven by Toni Vilander, while the two Porsche 911 RSRs slotted onto the second row. Corvette and BMW both struggled to match the pace of their rivals, with the two yellow C7.Rs starting sixth and eighth in Saturday’s race and the pair of M6s in seventh and ninth.
Prototype Challenge was topped by Robert Alon in the PR1/Mathiasen ORECA he shares with Tom Kimber-Smith, while Alex Riberas took pole in GT Daytona driving the Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R.
The penultimate round of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship gets underway at 11:35 local time on Saturday, September 17.
