Ford Chip Ganassi Racing dominated qualifying for Sunday’s IMSA Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
Richard Westbrook put down a 1m:41.948s lap in the #67 Ford GT, just 0.111 seconds ahead of his teammate Joey Hand. It was Westbrook’s second pole at Watkins Glen International in three years.
“That was a pretty good fight with my teammate (Joey Hand),” Westbrook said. “We’ve had a little bit of an advantage over our teammates in practice, but I knew it was going to be close. I got the most out of it today. This is a special place for me. It was one of the first races I did when I came to America, and I just fell in love with it. I didn’t want to see the checkered flag. I just wanted to go on for hours.”
The Ford GT has qualified on pole at the historic New York track every year since its debut two years ago, with the #66 starting p1 in 2017.
The Corvette Racing crews drove well and qualified in third and fourth, thanks to a 1m:42.365s lap by Tommy Milner and a 1m:42.497s by Antonio Garcia (despite a spin at the Bus Stop), in the #4 and #3 Corvette C7.Rs.
Then it was the Porsche GT Teams in fifth and sixth ahead of the pair of BMW Team RLL M8 GTEs, which had problems and will start of the rear of the field.
GTD Class
British driver Jack Hawksworth claimed his second GT Daytona class pole out of the last three races, putting the #15 3GT Racing Lexus RC F GT3 at the front of the grid in qualifying. Hawksworth’s 1m:44.499s lap was just ahead of the Land-Motorsport Audi R8 LMS, driven by Christopher Mies, by only 0.112 seconds.
Kyle Marcelli put another Lexus RC F into the top three, followed by the #86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 of Alvaro Parente.
Just one second separated the top eight GTD cars during the qualifying session.
