Promising grid positions for Porsche pilots

With Brumos Racing’s Porsche Riley, last year’s winner Darren Law (USA) takes up the Daytona 24 hour race on Saturday from the fourth row. In the fiercely contested qualifying for the long distance classic in Florida, Law turned the seventh quickest time. His gap to the pole-setter was eight-tenths of a second. Starting alongside him is last year’s third-placed Joao Barbosa (Portugal) at the wheel of the Porsche Riley fielded by Action Express Racing. The former Indy500 champion, Buddy Rice (USA), one of the winning Brumos quartet in 2009, tackles the race in the Porsche Coyote run by Spirit of Daytona Racing from the fifth grid row.

Porsche not only secured good starting positions with its Daytona Prototypes for the traditional season-opening round of the American Grand-Am Series on the Daytona International Speedway. In the GT class as well, the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup carried off a smooth qualifying: Competing for TRG, Andy Lally (USA) occupied fifth place in the GT class, just three-tenths of a second behind Orbit Racing pilot Johnny Mowlem (Great Britain) and Porsche works driver Patrick Long (USA), last year’s class winner in the 911 GT3 Cup of TRG/Flying Lizard Motorsports. Six Porsche works drivers contest the Daytona classic for various customer teams.

“The grid position doesn’t play such an important role at a 24 hour event. Above all, it’s about finding the optimal race set up during practice and then quickly getting into the rhythm in the race,” said Patrick Long. “It’s extremely close amongst the front-runners and this makes for exciting fights. We have a promising starting position.”

The 24 Hours of Daytona takes off on Saturday at 15.30 hours local time (21.30 hours CET).

Result Qualifying
1. Max Angelelli (I), Ford Dallara (DP), 1:40.681 minutes
2. Oswaldo Negri (USA), Ford Riley (DP), + 0.419 seconds
3. Michael Valiante (CAN), Ford Riley (DP), + 0.429
4. Scott Dixon (NZ), BMW Riley (DP), + 0.466
5. Scott Pruett (USA), BMW Riley (DP), + 0.483
6. Christophe Bouchut (F), BMW Riley (DP), + 0.782
7. Darren Law (USA), Porsche Riley (DP), + 0.832
8. Joao Barbosa (P), Porsche Riley (DP), + 0.922
9. Ricardo Zonta (BRA), Ford Lola (DP), + 1.379
10. Buddy Rice (USA), Porsche Coyote (DP), + 1.393