Wayne Taylor Racing’s Louis Deletraz set a lap at 110.034 mph with two minutes remaining in qualifying Saturday (May 2). That time held up to give the Swiss racer the pole for Sunday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship StubHub Monterey Sportscar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
“It’s awesome. I’m so happy,” Deletraz told NBC Sports’ Matt Yocum after the session. “We’ve been working really hard…at Wayne Taylor Racing, pushing for performance. I’m happy to reward them with a pole position.
Deletraz won the pole by .28 seconds over Action Express Racing’s Jack Aitken, giving Cadillac a front row sweep. Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Nick Yelloly will start third, followed by BMW M Team WRT’s Dries Vanthoor. Tom Blomqvist in the second Acura was fifth.
Conditions at Laguna Seca were cool and cloudy Saturday with temperatures in the upper 50s. Decent conditions to produce a lot of power.
Porsche Penske Motorsports’ Julien Andlauer was quick early on, but he lost the top spot to Wayne Taylor Racing’s Louis Deletraz, who was fastest in both practice sessions. Unlike the GTD classes, once qualifying starts, teams only get three sets of tires for qualifying and the race. As a result, tire changing was not going to be a thing here.
Aitken dropped into the 73-second bracket just before the halfway point of the session. Deletraz quickly followed to retake the lead.
From there, Deletraz continued to lower his time and just put it that much further out of Aitken’s reach. Even after Deletraz set the eventual pole, Aitken was still trying to improve, but he could not do anything to beat Deletraz.
GTD Pro saw Paul Miller Racing’s Neil Verhagen dominate early in the session. He put himself on top with a lap at 99.091 mph. However, that was invalidated due to track limits violations.
As a result, the top spot moved to Pfaff Motorsports’ Sandy Mitchell in the new Lamborghini Temerario GT3. That lap was beaten shortly afterwards by Vasser Sullivan’s Jack Hawksworth.
From there, Hawksworth continued to improve, eventually setting a lap at 99.187 mph. That lap held up to win the GTD Pro pole.
Hawksworth won the pole by .257 seconds over Verhagen, who could not equal his time that got disallowed. Ford Racing’s Christopher Mies will start third, then AO Racing’s Harry King in “Sketchy.” Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Antonio Garcia was fifth.
In GTD, Gradient Racing’s Jake Walker set the first lap at speed in his Ford Mustang GT3, but that was overtaken by Conquest Racing’s Lorenzo Patrese. Patrese, racing in place of Manny Franco, had been on pace all weekend to this point.
Patrese continued to pour it on, dropping into the 81-second bracket. He eventually set a lap at 98.928 mph with five minutes to go. The rest of the field took their shots at it, but Patrese held on to win the GTD pole.
Patrese’s lap was .022 seconds faster than the Lamborghini of Wayne Taylor Racing’s Danny Formal. The Heart of Racing’s Eduardo Barrichello will start third, followed by Winward Racing’s Russell Ward. Vasser Sullivan’s Benjamin Pedersen was fifth in his Lexus.
The session was clean with no red flags. Blomqvist did have an off-course excursion at the Andretti Hairpin where he got in the dirt, but was able to continue without issue.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship StubHub Monterey Sportscar Championship Qualifying Results
The StubHub Monterey Sportscar Championship is scheduled to go green at 4:15 p.m. ET Sunday. Live coverage of the race will begin at 4 p.m. ET on NBCSN and Peacock.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the Frontstretch Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.