The No. 6 Porsche 963 will tackle round five of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship from pole position. Nick Tandy from the UK set the fastest lap time in qualifying on the Detroit city course. His teammate Dane Cameron from the USA rounded off the impressive result for the Porsche Penske Motorsport works team with second place. The two identical 511 kW (695 PS) hybrid prototypes fielded by Proton Competition and JDC-Miller MotorSports customer squads secured positions seven and nine respectively. The fourth grid spot in the GTD-Pro class went to AO Racing’s so-called ‘Rexy’ Porsche 911 GT3 R.

In bright sunshine and 25-degree Celsius temperatures, a nail-biting hunt for top times unfolded on the narrow and extremely bumpy street course in Detroit. The first 13 minutes of the 15-minute session saw lap times tumble – before the qualifying came to an abrupt halt, when the race director red-flagged the session after a Cadillac spun on the track. Luckily, Le Mans winner Nick Tandy had just turned the fastest lap, with his teammate Dane Cameron posting the second quickest time. This is the first pole position for the Porsche 963 in this year’s IMSA series in North America.

“We’re thrilled with such a great result. Starting from the front grid row is particularly important on such a narrow street course,” states Urs Kuratle, Director Factory Motorsport LMDh. “Our drivers and the whole team did an absolutely flawless job. That said, we should acknowledge that we were a little lucky with the red flag. Both of our cars had just appeared at the top of the timesheets. Things might have looked a little different had the red flag come out at a different time. Still, we’re heading into the race feeling optimistic.” A decent grid position on such a tight and bumpy circuit is the key to success. With very little chance to overtake and a race duration of just 100 minutes, strategic options are limited.

“We wrapped up the qualifying with the first two grid positions – it doesn’t get better than that. It’s been a great day for our team,” said Jonathan Diuguid, Managing Director Porsche Penske Motorsport. “We’ve made huge strides in improving our setup for such city circuits – we witnessed this today. Nick and Dane were very strong in qualifying and pushed each other to the limit. We’re excited for tomorrow’s race!”

The two Porsche 963 fielded by the JDC-Miller MotorSports and Proton Competition customer teams also set fast times but were unable to match the pace of the factory squads. Bent Viscaal from the Netherlands planted Proton Competition’s No. 5 Porsche on P7, while his fellow countryman Tijmen van der Helm set the ninth quickest time in JDC-Miller MotorSports’s No. 85 entry.

AO Racing’s Porsche 911 GT3 R secures P4 in the GTD Pro class
The Porsche 911 GT3 R campaigned by AO Racing qualified on the second grid row in the GTD Pro class. Britain’s Sebastian Priaulx, who shares the so-called “Rexy” 911 with the former Porsche Junior Laurin Heinrich from Germany, clocked the fourth fastest time in the 15-minute session. The GTD category, in which the Porsche customer teams Wright Motorsports, Andretti Motorsports and MDK Motorsports normally compete, will not be contested as part of the IMSA series in Detroit this weekend.

Round five of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season on the 2.66-kilometre city circuit in Detroit is a sprint over 100 minutes. The race gets underway on Saturday, 1 June at 3:10 pm local time (21:10 CEST). Outside of North America, the entire race can be watched via a free live stream on IMSA.tv.

Drivers’ post-qualifying comments
Nick Tandy (Porsche 963 #6): “Mega! We’ve taken the first two grid spots as a team and finally achieved another pole position with our number 6 car. We won the Laguna Seca race recently, now we’re on P1 in Detroit – things look good for us! The weekend is going well so far: great weather, heaps of fans and top track conditions. The teamwork is absolutely flawless and it makes me confident that we can fight for victory tomorrow.”

Dane Cameron (Porsche 963 #7): “Obviously it’s wonderful to lock out the entire front row of the grid. The Porsche Penske Motorsport crew has done an exemplary job. We didn’t expect such a great result – given the track characteristics, we thought we’d be further back. First and second place is a nice surprise. Hopefully, we can get our cars through the first turn in one piece – and then take the flag in positions one and two.”

Bent Viscaal (Porsche 963 #5): “We made good progress during the practice sessions. Still, it took quite some time to get the tyres up to the optimal operating window – we saw that in the first few laps of qualifying today. I think we could’ve done better but the red flags hampered any improvement. P7 is okay. For sure anything is possible in the race.”

Tijmen van der Helm (Porsche 963 #85): “We didn’t quite get up to speed during practice. The qualifying result isn’t perfect but at least we closed the gap to the other teams a bit. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow. Overtaking is virtually impossible on this track. Let’s hope for some luck and not make any mistakes.”

Sebastian Priaulx (Porsche 911 GT3 R #77): “This circuit is really cool. I had great fun driving our car, even though the Corvettes are in a completely different league. I did my absolute best today. Now it’s time to steel ourselves and go hard out in the race tomorrow.”

Qualifying results
GTP class:
1. Jaminet/Tandy (F/UK), Porsche 963 #6, 1:05.390 minutes
2. Nasr/Cameron (BR/USA), Porsche 963 #7, 1:05.514 minutes
3. Bourdais/Van der Zande (F/NL), Cadillac #01, 1:05.762 minutes
7. Bruni/Viscaal (I/NL), Porsche 963 #5, 1:06.326 minutes
9. Van der Helm/Westbrook (NL/UK), Porsche 963 #85, 1:06.657 minutes

GTD Pro class:
1. Garcia/Sims (E/UK), Corvette #3, 1:09.092 minutes
2. Milner/Catsburg (USA/NL), Corvette #4, 1:09.428 minutes
3. Hawksworth/Barnicoat (UK/UK), Lexus #14, 1:09.626 minutes
4. Heinrich/Priaulx (D/UK), Porsche 911 GT3 R #77, 1:09.705 minutes

Full results and championship standings at https://imsa.alkamelsystems.com