With long straights and a lack of downforce-loving high speed corners, experts predicted the Daytona Prototypes with their straight line speed advantage would outpace the Le Mans-style P2 cars here at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

However, the exact opposite turned out to be the case with the P2 cars leading the field with a 1-2-3 result in qualifying inluding Extreme Speed Motorsports’ first ever 1-2 qualifying performance.

Ryan Dalziel led the attack for ESM, stopping the clocks at 1:17.603 – just under 3/10ths of a second faster than his teammate Johannes van Overbeek.

Oak Racing’s Gustavo Yacaman was third fastest aboard the Nissan Morgan.

“Both Johannes and I were talking that we didn’t expect the track to be this hot at this time of night and we certainly didn’t expect the times to be so early in the session,” Dalziel said.

“I think as a team we’ve had a rough couple of races and a long time since the success of Sebring and Laguna Seca so we’re looking forward to some success today.

“We can honestly say we thought this was going to be the worst event for us this year. We were really prepared to come in and get slaughtered pretty good and maybe hope to pick up some points.

“I think the resurfacing of the track and using the Indycar layout has helped. I don’t think it benefited us, if you look at it as a whole it evens out.

“But with three P2s up front, hopefully we can stay up there by turn one, but with the way the start finish line is here, I think it will be unlikely to see a P2 car leading on the first lap.”

The race goes green at 5:45pm tonight with the Fox Sports 1 live broadcast kicking off at 5:30pm.