Pla Captures Second Straight TOTAL Pole Award At Sebring - Speedway Digest

Hard work by the Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian team to rebuild the No. 60 Tire Kingdom Honda Ligier JS P2 after a pair of incidents paid off on Friday, with Olivier Pla capturing the TOTAL Pole Award for the 64th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh from Florida.

Pla ran a lap of 1:51.217 (121.061 mph) to capture his second consecutive pole Sebring pole in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition. The team worked until 3 a.m. repairing major damage to three corners of the car following an incident by John Pew in Thursday’s night practice. Then in Friday morning’s final practice, Pla had a brake issue and impacted a barrier, escaping with broken front-end bodywork.

“It was tough in many ways,” said Pla, who co-drives with Pew and Ozz Negri. “First, because yesterday the crew had to repair the car overnight, and things were a bit crazy. Then today we changed the setup because we were struggling. It paid off. We knew we had to push, because qualifying and the race were going to be tough. I love this track. I know this one is difficult, but the team gave me a great car.”

Rolex 24 At Daytona winner Pipo Derani will start second, running a best lap of 1:51.391 (120.872 mph) in the No. 2 Tequila Patrón ESM Honda Ligier JS P2 co-driven by Ed Brown, Scott Sharp and Johannes van Overbeek.

While Action Express Racing dominated the weekend’s four practice sessions, the two-car team had to settle for sharing the second row following the 15-minute session. Dane Cameron was third fastest with a lap of 1:51.943 (120.275 mph) in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering/Team Fox Corvette DP co-driven by Eric Curran and Scott Pruett. Christian Fittipaldi qualified fourth with a lap of 1:52.205 (119.995 mph). He will be joined by fellow defending Sebring winner Joao Barbosa plus Filipe Albuquerque in the 2015-winning No. 5 Mustang Sampling Corvette DP.

Rare Qualifying Attempt Results In PC Pole For Braun, CORE autosport

Making a rare qualifying attempt in the No. 54 CORE autosport Flex-Box/Composite Resources ORECA FLM09, Colin Braun went to the top of the charts and stayed there, capturing the TOTAL Pole Award in Prototype Challenge (PC) with a lap of 1:54.910 (117.170 mph).

Braun recorded his fourth career WeatherTech Championship pole but first since Indianapolis in 2014. His lone qualifying attempt since then was at Daytona in 2015, after a rule change to mandate that the qualifying driver also must start the race.

“It’s nice to get the chance to qualify,” said Braun, who scored his 13th career pole in major American sports car competition. “We’ve been quick all week and we have a nice race car. We’ve always run well here. Tomorrow we’re going to have variable conditions including some rain, so that will play into things. I think you have to have a little luck to get through the first 10 hours, and then you really need to work things out in the last two hours.”

Defending Sebring class winner Tom Kimber-Smith qualified second in the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entry with a lap of 1:55.843 (116.226 mph). Qualifying in the second row were Daytona pole winner Johnny Mowlem, 1:56.661 (115.441 mph) in the No. 20 BAR1 Motorsports ORECA, and James French, 1:57.189 (114.891 mph) in the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry.

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Adam Sinclair

NHRA, IHRA, Motocross and other forms of motorsports Staff writer
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.