Van der Zande, Acura Set to Start 2026 Rolex 24 from the Pole

Renger van der Zande will lead the field to green for the 64th Rolex 24 At Daytona, aboard the No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06. 

The Dutchman unofficially qualified second, 0.102 seconds behind Jack Aitken, during the 15-minute Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class qualifying session to set the grid for the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season opener.

The No. 31 GTP car will be moved to the rear of the GTP class as post-qualifying technical inspection revealed that the car's friction area of the rear skid block was beyond the permitted tolerance.

This will promote Acura and van der Zande to the top spot, with the Dutchman set to share his Acura with full-season co-driver Nick Yelloly, four-time and reigning IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou and sophomore sensation Kaku Ohta.

The No. 93 Acura was a Motul Pole Award regular in 2025 with three consecutive P1s achieved from Detroit in May through Road America in August. Yelloly had two of the three, sandwiching van der Zande’s most recent pole, which was achieved at Watkins Glen in June.

Van der Zande’s ultimate fastest lap was 1 minute, 34.041 seconds (136.281 miles per hour), only 0.028 of a second clear of second place.

With this change, the grid now sees three of the five manufacturers racing in GTP in the top three positions.

The No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R moves up to second, qualified by Louis Deletraz and sharing the car with previous Rolex 24 winners Jordan Taylor and Colton Herta.

Porsche Penske Motorsport’s No. 7 Porsche 963 and Felipe Nasr aim for their third straight win together at the Rolex 24 and will roll off from P3. Nasr shares his car with new teammates Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich.

The sister No. 60 Acura MSR entry, the most experienced entry in the race with a quartet of past Rolex 24 winners in Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Scott Dixon and AJ Allmendinger will start fourth ahead of the No. 6 Porsche Penske car, which has a new full-season lineup of Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor joined by last year’s GTP champion Matt Campbell.

The two BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 cars outqualified the Aston Martin Valkyrie a little further down the order, with the WRT team fixing a hybrid issue on its No. 25 chassis it dealt with in practice.

LMP2: Clarke Emerges on Top of Tight Battle

In his Rolex 24 debut, American Jeremy Clarke claimed pole position for the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class in his No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07, as he ran a lap a slight 0.008 of a second faster than PJ Hyett in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07.

Clarke followed his maiden pole position at the season finale Motul Petit Le Mans out-running Hyett with just under four minutes remaining in an action-packed 15-minute session for the class’s 13-car field.

Clarke and co-drivers Tom Dillmann, Bijoy Garg and Antonio Felix de Costa are in pursuit of the team’s first Rolex 24 trophy, after celebrating a win at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring last March.

“This track takes a lot of patience; it’s a very technical track but also puts on a lot of great racing with a lot of fast corners so it’s really about focusing on every corner and just hitting everything just right,’’ Clarke said. “One mistake and you’re P6, so it’s all about putting down the perfect lap.

“The field is extremely tight. PJ was right there. Really, this track is so technical in some places but yet just takes a lot of courage through some of the fast corners, so it was all about kind of putting in the lap that you really needed to."

Hyett’s No. 99 AO Racing ORECA, “Spike, the LMP2 Dragon” takes on a new gold livery for this race as he goes for his first Rolex 24 win alongside Dane Cameron, Jonny Edgar and Christian Rasmussen.

The top six cars in LMP2 class were separated by less than 0.9 of a second. Defending Daytona winners No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA will roll off third in class with a lineup featuring Daniel Goldburg, Paul Di Resta, Rasmus Lindh and Gregoire Saucy.

Results are HERE