Cadillac’s Jack Aitken took pole for the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the 2026 IMSA season-opening race, with a 1:33.939, the only driver to get under 94 seconds.
Second was Renger van der Zande in the #93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing machine, just over a tenth off Aitken, while third was Louis Deletraz, onboard the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac, a further 0.028 adrift of van der Zande.
Aitken was top early on as drivers got the tyres and brakes up into temperature, with a 1:36.816, but his eventual pole lap was almost 3 seconds faster than this.
A series of other drivers went top in between, including van der Zande, his Acura stablemate Tom Blomqvist, and Dries Vanthoor in the #24 BMW.
However, Aitken managed his tyres well to take pole, setting his fastest time on his tour of the circuit, completing 6 laps in the 15 minute session.
With van der Zande and Deletraz second amd third, fourth went to Felipe Nasr in the #7 Porsche. The Brazilian looked like he could be a threat for pole but wasn’t able to string a lap together. He held the fastest first sector, well over a tenth up on Aitken, but the Briton was fastest in the final two sectors.
Fifth went to the #60 Acura MSR machine of Tom Blomqvist, who never quite had the pace of his Dutch teammate in the #93 car. Sixth was the second of the Porsches, Kevin Estre in the #6, while 7th went to Filipe Albuquerque in the #10 Wayne Taylor Cadillac.
Nico Pino in the customer #85 JDC Miller Porsche was eighth, while 9th and 10th went to the two BMWs, Dries Vanthoor ahead of Marco Wittmann in the #25. 11th and last in class was the #23 Aston Martin THOR Valkyrie of Ross Gunn.
Inter Europol captures Rolex 24 LMP2 pole
Jeremy Clarke took pole in LMP2, in the #43 Inter Europol Oreca. The American set a 1:39.952 to go quickest, ahead of PJ Hyett in the #99 AO Racing Oreca and Daniel Goldburg in third in the #22 United Autosports Oreca.
Clarke was at or near the top for the entire session, but it was Goldburg who was fastest with 9 minutes remaining of the 15 minute session, with a lap ultimately 9 tenths slower than Clarke’s pole lap.
Clarke sat second at this point, but he almost lost the rear end of his Oreca at turn 1, having a big moment as he braked heavily. Luckily, though, he managed to save it, and it’s good he did as he managed to take pole.
His penultimate lap was enough to take pole, the 7th of the session for the American. Behind him, Hyett was abn excruciating 8 thousandths of the second behind Clarke. Hyett had set his lap moments earlier than Clarke and must have thought, for a glorious moment, he had it, but it wasn’t to be.
Third was Daniel Goldburg, 0.136 slower than Clarke. Goldberg was top for much of the session before Clarke and Hyett found pace and improved late on, demoting the United Autosports to third, which he couldn’t improve from.
READ MORE – IMSA 2026 Rolex 24 at Daytona – GTP Qualifying Results
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