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WeatherTech Championship

Edwards, BMW Snag GTLM Pole at COTA

BMW will start from the GTLM pole Saturday at COTA…

Photo: IMSA

Photo: IMSA

John Edwards scored a breakthrough pole position for BMW Team RLL, besting a competitive field of nine GT Le Mans competitors that was separated by less than a second in qualifying for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Advance Auto Parts Sportscar Showdown at Circuit of The Americas.

Edwards, driving the No. 24 BMW M6 GTLM, displaced Giancarlo Fisichella’s Ferrari 488 GT GTE at the top of the class standings in the closing minutes of the 15-minute qualifying session, pipping the Italian by 0.032 seconds.

It was the first pole position for Edwards in the M6 GTLM.

His teammate Alexander Sims made his last lap count, jumping to third in the No. 25 BMW with no time to spare in the session.

The Ford GTs of Ryan Briscoe and Dirk Mueller rounded out the top five for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing.

Mathieu Jaminet took the GT Daytona class pole for Alegra Motorsports in his series debut in the No. 28 Porsche 911 GT3 R, fending off Jack Hawskworth in the No. 15 Lexus RC F GT3 by 0.092 seconds.

Jaminet does have experience at COTA, having raced and won at the circuit last year in Porsche Supercup competition, and was quickly up to speed in his first appearance with the Rolex 24 at Daytona-winning Alegra squad.

Jaminet got the call up to fill in for factory ace Michael Christensen, who is racing for Porsche at the WEC round at Spa this weekend, last Thursday.

Both qualifying sessions ran without major incident.

The Advance Auto Parts Sporscar Showdown is slated to go green at 1:35 p.m. CT tomorrow, with US television coverage on same-day delay at 7:00 p.m. ET on FS1. International audiences can stream the race live with IMSA Radio commentary at IMSA.tv.

RESULTS: Qualifying

Ryan Myrehn is an Indianapolis-based broadcaster and reporter. In addition to his work covering primarily domestic sports car racing for Sportscar365, he is the lead announcer for SRO America's TV coverage as well as a pit reporter for IndyCar Radio. Myrehn, a graduate of DePauw University, is also the host of Sportscar365's “Double Stint” Podcast.

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