World Endurance Champion Neel Jani resisted pressure from the Cadillac DPi contingent to clinch pole position for Rebellion Racing at the 12 Hours of Sebring.
The Porsche LMP1 driver jumped above Christian Fittipaldi in the timesheets with a 1:48.178s effort behind the wheel of the #13 ORECA 07-Gibson.
Jani will share the car with Sebastien Buemi and Nick Heidfeld during Saturday's endurance classic, which doubles up as round two of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.
Fittipaldi tried to recapture the place in the Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R., but missed out by just 0.095 seconds.
The result marks the first pole position for a global-spec LMP2 car in any competition.
12 Hours of Sebring Qualifying Result
Dane Cameron qualified third in the sister Action Express Cadillac DPi with a time of 1:48.394s.
Joining the defending IMSA series champion on the second row of the grid will be José Gutierrez in the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Ligier LMP2.
Problems befell 2016 race winner Pipo Derani, who was set to go quickest in the Extreme Speed Motorsports Nissan DPi before a mechanical issue halted his progress.
Derani radioed in to report a malfunction towards the end of his first flying lap, despite setting the best second sector time of the session. As a result, the ESM crew failed to submit a time and will have to start from the back of the class field.
In Prototype Challenge, Gustavo Yacaman resisted the challenge of James French to give BAR1 Motorsports its second consecutive pole position at Sebring.
Yacaman possessed a comfortable advantage during a stagnant opening 10 minutes, but a late charge by French prompted the Colombian to fight back with a time of 1:53.506s.
French pushed his spec ORECA FLM09 to the limit as the chequered flag came out, but the 24-year-old could only get to within 0.069 seconds of his rival's best effort.
Yacaman out-paced last year's Prototype Challenge pole time by 1.7 seconds on his way to a new class lap record.
Third in class and a further two seconds adrift was former Indy 500 winner Buddy Rice in the Gas Monkey BAR1 Motorsports ORECA.
The 65th edition of the 12 Hours of Sebring gets underway tomorrow (Saturday, March 18) at 10:40 local time.
