Ahead of Saturday’s Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca 240, the final of two, four-hour races on the SportsCar Challenge schedule this year, Brandon Davis will lead the Grand Sport (GS) class to green.
Davis, a resident of Napa, Calif., surpassed the previous track record set by Joe Foster in 2012 by a staggering 2.345 seconds, with a lap of one minute, 32.549 seconds in the No. 71 TRG-AMR Aston Martin Vantage. It will be his second career Continental Tire Challenge pole in what will be just his fifth series start.
“We had the luxury of going testing on Tuesday with the car and we got it to a place where we were happy with it,” Davis said.
“When we arrived here we had a base setup tuned specifically for the track. With the lower temperatures it took a little for the tire temps to come up so our fast lap wasn’t right away. We just kept going faster and faster and that last lap I was either going to send the car off the race track or put it on the pole. I’m happy it worked out.”
Four different manufacturers qualified in the top four positions ahead of Saturday’s race. Jesse Lazare drove his No. 69 Motorsports In Action McLaren GT4 to a second-place start, while Hugh Plumb put the No. 4 Team TGM Porsche Cayman GT4 MR third on the leaderboard.
Jack Roush, Jr. will start the No. 59 KohR Motorsports Ford Mustang in fourth. The second-quickest Porsche Cayman GT4 MR belongs to that of championship leaders Dillon Machavern and Dylan Murcott in the No. 28, who will start fifth.
In the Street Tuner (ST) class, Pierre Kleinubing also broke the previous track record by .047 seconds with an official time of one minute, 38.758 seconds in his No. 75 C360R Audi S3.
The pole marks a historical feat for Audi, with this being the manufacturer’s first since 2004 in the series and its first in the ST class. It is also Kleinubing’s first Continental Tire Challenge pole.
Justin Piscitell, who had held the previous track for the last two years, drove the No. 56 Murillo Racing Porsche Cayman with Eric Foss to finish second by .481 seconds.
“The extra traction we are getting seems to be the deal,” Kleinubing said when asked about what got him the pole. “My hat’s off to Audi and Compass360. Getting the max out of the Continentals seems to be key today and the extra traction never hurts.”
Two MINI JCWs will fall in line behind Piscitell, as Mike LaMarra qualified the No. 37 in third and teammate Nate Norenberg qualified the No. 52 in fourth. James Clay, who had scored the previous two consecutive class poles, will roll off fifth in the No. 84 BMW 328i.
The penultimate round of the four-hour MRLS 240 goes green tomorrow at 2 p.m. PT.
