Magnussen Secures GTLM Pole for Corvette

Photo: Vision Sport Agency

Jan Magnussen has put Corvette Racing on the GT Le Mans class pole for this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, denying Joey Hand a repeat pole position by a narrow margin.

The Corvette driver qualified with a time of 1:42.779 to beat Ford Chip Ganassi Racing’s Hand, who was on pole for last year’s race, by a mere 0.019 seconds.

Magnussen co-drives alongside Mike Rockenfeller and Antonio Garcia and it is the Dane’s 20th pole in IMSA competition.

The pair of Porsche 911 RSRs will start from third and fourth with three manufacturers represented in the top three positions in class. Laurens Vanthoor pipped Patrick Pilet to be the quickest Porsche driver.

The No. 67 Ford GT and No. 4 Corvette will start from fifth and sixth, ahead of the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE, qualified by Toni Vilander.

The new BMW M8 GTEs were the only cars that were more than one second off the pace although the No. 24 car did complete its first laps of the weekend after two separate issues denied it from running in Practice 1 and 2.

Daniel Serra took the GT Daytona class pole for Spirit of Race in a Ferrari 488 GT3 lockout of the front row in the team’s second consecutive Rolex 24 pole

The Brazilian driver posted a time of 1:46.049 in the No. 51 Ferrari he shares with Paul Dalla Lana, Mathias Lauda and Pedro Lamy.

It marked a one-second improvement over Alessandro Pier Guidi’s pole time form last year’s race. 

Serra took the lead midway through the 15-minute session after Sven Mueller, Alessandro Balzan, Andy Lally and Dominik Baumann were amongst the drivers to provisionally post the fastest lap.

Miguel Molina put the No. 82 Risi Competizione Ferrari into second position while Mirko Bortolotti qualified third for Grasser Racing Team. 

Neither the Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R nor P1 Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 qualified.

The 56th Rolex 24 at Daytona gets underway Saturday at 2:40 p.m. ET with live coverage on FOX.

RESULTS: Qualifying

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.