CORE autosport has been the team to beat in the PC class winning back-to-back championships over the past two years. After today’s qualifying session at Sebring, it appears the Rock Hill, SC-based squad is aiming for a three-peat.

CORE star Colin Braun earned the PC class pole on his final lap of today’s qualifying session.

Braun’s first lap around the 3.74-mile track put the No. 05 ORECA FLM09 at the top of the PC qualifying times early.

After shuffling around the top three for the majority of the 15-minute session, Braun pulled out all the stops on his final lap and flashed across the finish line with a lap of 1:53.404 (118.726 mph).

Braun will share with team owner Jon Bennett and one of CORE’s Petit Le Mans winning drivers from last year, Mark Wilkins.

“A big congratulations to CORE autosport. This is more about what the team has done over the offseason and what they’ve done over the week,” Braun said.

“They’ve been working their butts off getting this car prepared. We didn’t work really hard on our qualifying setup, we worked more on the race setup, so to be able to jump up there and get the pole is surprising, actually.

“[Engineer] Gary Davies did a great job getting me setup for qualifying. I’m really excited to get the race going. It’s nice to end the qualifying session on top, but even more exciting because I think we have a better race car than we do a qualifying car.

“I think everyone was getting quicker and quicker. The first lap that I put in was really good and I thought it could be a potential pole lap, but I ended up going six or seven-tenths quicker. I was a little bit surprised by that. I had to keep pushing harder and harder, but I was happy.”

CORE will expand its program soon with the addition of a GT class Porsche for Patrick Long and Tom Kimber-Smith which is expected to debut at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.