Taylor Leads Acura Qualifying Runs at Sebring
Ricky Taylor led the way for Acura in qualifying Friday at Sebring International Raceway, and will start his Acura Team Penske ARX-05 prototype from third in tomorrow's 66th annual running of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Driving the Honda of America Racing Team Acura NSX GT3, Tom Dyer will start eighth in the highly competitive GTD class.
Acura Team Penske Despite a spin early in the 15-minute qualifying session, Taylor rebounded for a quick time of 1:47.773 around the 3.74-mile Sebring road course to place the #7 Acura ARX-05 third, just three tenths of a second off the record pole time set by Tristan Vautier. As at Daytona, Taylor will share driving duties with Helio Castroneves and Graham Rahal.
Driving the #6 Acura ARX-05 prototype he will share with Dane Cameron and Simon Pagenaud, Juan Pablo Montoya qualified sixth with a time of 1:48.177 for Acura Team Penske.
Acura NSX GT3 Teams Driving for the Honda of America Racing Team, Tom Dyer will line up eighth in GTD as the team, made up primarily of American Honda associates, moves up to IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for 2018. Chad Gilsinger and Ryan Eversley complete the driver lineup for the #69 HART NSX GT3 for Saturday's 12-hour endurance contest.
Katherine Legge qualified 10th in GTD in the first of two Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3s. Her co-drivers in the #86 NSX GT3 will be Trent Hindman and Alvaro Parente. The second MSR Acura, the #93 driven by Lawson Aschenbach, Justin Marks and Mario Farnbacher, missed qualifying after sustaining damage in a practice session crash on Thursday. The Acura is undergoing repairs in the Sebring paddock and is expected to make the 10:40 a.m. green flag on Saturday. CJ Wilson Racing is making its GTD debut this weekend at Sebring, and Marc Miller qualified the #36 NSX GT3 in 12th. His co-drivers will be Kuno Wittmer and Till Bechtolsheimer.
Television coverage from Sebring begins at 10:30 a.m. EST Saturday on Fox Sports 1, shifting to Fox Sports 2 from 12:30-3:30 p.m. Live television coverage for the final half of the contest and the finish resumes on FS2 from 6-11 p.m. The entire race will be streamed live on Fox Sports GO, accessable with FS1 authentication. Fans can also listen in to audio commentary via IMSA.com, RadioLeMans.com and Sirius XM Radio.
Quote Tom Dyer (driver, #69 HART Acura NSX GT3) 8th in GTD class qualifying: "We are really pleased with this qualifying run, especially with it being the team's first event at Sebring. To be the highest Acura is a nice achievement for this first-year team at this level. It's awesome driving the car this year and seeing how much it has improved since last year. A lot of credit to these guys – Honda Performance Development and the Michael Shank Racing team – for developing the car and getting it to where it is. There are lots of people behind this car and putting their brainpower and resources into it."
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