BMW’s Werner is 15th GTLM pole winner
BMW’s Werner is 15th GTLM pole winner
BMW Team RLL’s Dirk Werner became the 15th different driver to claim the GT Le Mans class pole in the first 15 races of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship series.
Two weeks ago on the streets of Long Beach, Werner ran the fastest GTLM race lap and ended a five-year personal winless streak as he and co-driver Bill Auberlen took the victory. Now the German has claimed the GTLM class pole for Sunday’s Monterey Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
“Winning at Long Beach and running well here pushes the whole team and certainly helps self-confidence,” said Werner. “The track here rewards a good handling car. Our BMW team made some changes and set an aggressive plan for qualifying and it worked well.”
All seven Michelin technical partner teams from BMW, Ferrari, Porsche and Corvette Racing qualified within 0.453 seconds of Werner’s record-setting 1:22.362 lap around the hilly 11-turn, 2.238-mile circuit. Michelin technical partners have enjoyed great success at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, taking GT class wins in each of the past 14 consecutive years.
Werner’s BMW Team RLL teammate Lucas Luhr and Risi Competizione’s Pierre Kaffer turned identical laps down to the third decimal point at 1:22.610 seconds, but Luhr will claim the front row spot by having set the time first.
Porsche North America driver Patrick Pilet edged Corvette Racing’s Tommy Milner by three thousandths of a second for the fourth spot, 1:22.708 to 1:22.711.
Porsche’s Michael Christensen qualified sixth at 1:22.788, while the 2013 and 2014 race-winning Corvette of Antonio Garcia took the seventh spot at 1:22.815.
Falken Porsche’s Wolf Henzler qualified eighth at 1:23.274.
The two-hour, 40-minute race will be televised live on Fox Sports 1 on Sunday at 4:00 p.m. ET.
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