Derani Puts No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac on Pole at Road America with Track Record Lap

New track records were established Saturday for four of the five classes of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at the newly repaved Road America, site of the IMSA SportsCar Weekend.

Pipo Derani (No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac V-Series.R) established a new benchmark of 1 minute, 47.730 seconds (135.271 mph) for the 4.048-mile road course in the first year for IMSA’s new hybrid-powered Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class. The previous lap record of 1:48.715 for the challenging 14-corner circuit in Wisconsin’s scenic Kettle Moraine district was set in 2019 by Dane Cameron in an Acura built to Daytona Prototype international (DPi) technical regulations.

Derani looked to have a comfortable edge on the 10-car GTP field until Matt Campbell clocked a lap at 1:47.798 (135.185 mph) in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963 with two and a half minutes remaining in the 20-minute session. But there were no late challenges to the No. 31 Cadillac as Derani earned his ninth career Motul Pole Award in IMSA competition and second of the 2023 season.

Sebastien Bourdais (No. 01 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R) and Ricky Taylor (No. 10 Konica Minolta Racing Acura ARX-06) landed second row starting spots.

“It’s been obviously a very good weekend so far for Cadillac Racing,” said Derani, whose co-driver is Alexander Sims. “We unloaded from the truck with a very good car, but with the field so tight as we have seen in every practice, we had to keep working hard for qualifying. To prove the results we had in practice with a pole position shows we were working in the right direction.”

Sims and Derani won the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring from the pole earlier this year and arrived at Road America leading the GTP class championship by 10 points over the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8 driven by Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly. That margin grew to 19 points Saturday, as De Phillippi qualified fifth at 1:48.219 (134.659 mph).

“Back when I won the (DPi) championship in 2021 (with Felipe Nasr as teammate), it was decided on the minimum – one or two points,” Derani recalled. “So being able to take these extra points home could mean something at the end of the championship. With our position in the championship, it has a big effect.”

The focus for Derani and the other GTP competitors in Sunday’s 2-hour, 40-minute race now shifts to negotiating traffic, with a robust 45-car field. While Road America’s grippy new pavement has helped create record lap times, it is also extremely slick off the racing line, making the act of passing slower cars treacherous at times. As the leader, Derani likened it to racing in the rain, being the first to determine how much grip exists off-line and when it is safe to try to make a pass.

“It’s definitely a bigger challenge for us,” Derani said. “Normally we just expect the GT cars to hold their line, and we go around them. By going around them, you’re putting yourself on a not-so-good part of the track. So, it’s going to be tricky, especially in the Carousel, where we have seen quite a few guys going off the track this weekend. It’s going to be interesting to see how much grip builds up during the race.”

Kurtz Earns Second Pole to Lead LMP2 Grid

The hot-button Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) title battle sees championship leaders George Kurtz and Ben Hanley roll off from the front of the field on Sunday in their No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07 chassis.

What had been a tight fight between three cars in class evolved to a dominant Motul Pole Award qualifying lap set by Kurtz, with a best time of 1:53.621 (128.257 mph) around the freshly repaved 4.048-mile natural terrain road course at Road America. Kurtz set the fastest time by 0.508 seconds en route to both his second pole of the season and in his WeatherTech Championship career.

“I’ve been getting used to the one-groove line. The team gave me a great car and we put it on pole,” Kurtz said. “We made some changes overnight as the first (practice) session was a little bit messy, but we did the best we could with Practice 2 and 3.”

Kurtz and Hanley entered the weekend up three points on Steven Thomas and Mikkel Jensen in their No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA and six up on Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA.

Late recruit Rodrigo Sales impressed to qualify the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA second at 1:54.129. Thomas took his rebuilt No. 11 TDS car to third (1:54.296) after it sustained significant damage in a crash on Friday. Keating qualified the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen ORECA in fourth (1:54.785). Dwight Merriman was fifth in the No. 18 Era Motorsport car (1:54.870) as he and co-driver Ryan Dalziel seek a third straight Road America win.

Pino Flies in a Pair of Ways to LMP3 Pole

Young Chilean Nico Pino was flying both metaphorically and literally on the way to his second WeatherTech Championship pole in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3), driving the No. 33 Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier JS P320. Pino also won the pole at the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona, and the team also took the Road America pole last year with Malthe Jakobsen driving.

Pino, a late addition this week in place of Lance Willsey alongside Joao Barbosa, set an LMP3 track record of 1:57.930 (123.571 mph) that eclipsed Jakobsen’s old mark by 1.504 seconds.

The 18-year-old Pino’s speed wasn’t the only thing on display. So was his car control, after he ran wide at Turn 1 the lap following his pole winner. He caught significant air going over the curb on corner exit but stuck the landing and resumed on course.

“We made a pretty aggressive change for this run. Of course, it worked!” Pino said. “It handled one lap. I had a couple moments throughout. We needed to find a bit more pace just in case someone else went quicker. I think it behaved pretty well.”

Of the late setup change, Pino said, “I’ve done it a few times before, so I’ve been used to these kinds of decisions with how aggressive it’ll be. This made us the fastest we’ve been the whole weekend.”

Pino’s pole time was 0.930 seconds ahead of series debutante Bijoy Garg (No. 29 Jr III Racing Ligier) in second place. Gar Robinson, the championship points leader, will roll off from third in the No. 74 Riley Ligier in the car he’s sharing with Josh Burdon this weekend.