Derani Leads Cadillac Front Row Sweep at Sebring

Pipo Derani has scored pole for Saturday’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Cadillac, leading an all-Cadillac front row for the second round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.

Derani took his No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R to a best lap of 1:48.152 in the stop-start session that was impacted by a red flag for an accident by Mathieu Jaminet.

Ricky Taylor recorded the quickest lap of the session, a 1:48.038, but his No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 lost all qualifying times due to the team working on the car during the red flag.

Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac qualified second with a 1:48.299, followed by the No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 of Philipp Eng in third.

Phil Hanson ended up fourth after sitting on provisional pole in the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche prior to the red flag for Jaminet, who slammed his No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 into the wall after spinning on the exit of Turn 1.

The accident came with nine minutes left in the session, with the clock having been reset with 4 minutes and 4 seconds left in order to run to the minimum required duration of the session.

The No. 5 Proton Competition Porsche will start from the fifth position, ahead of the No. 40 WTRAndretti Acura of Louis Deleraz, which bounced back from an engine change on Thursday evening.

Several GTP cars did not set representative times, including the WeatherTech Championship debuting No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63 in 14th overall with a 1:53.574 and the No. 25 Team RLL BMW of Connor De Phillippi, who was even further behind in 17th.

Jaminet, meanwhile, lost his two quickest laps of the session as a result of bringing out the red flag and will start tenth in class, in front of the No. 10 WTRAndretti Acura that was penalized.

LMP2 pole honors went to PJ Hyett in the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca 07 Gibson.

Hyett reeled off a 1:52.142 in the ‘Spike’ dragon-liveried Oreca to edge out the No. 22 United Autosports entry of Daniel Goldburg by 0.171 seconds.

It marked Hyett’s first WeatherTech Championship pole after achieving top qualifying honors in the Asian Le Mans Series last season.

Goldburg’s teammate Ben Keating was third quickest with a 1:52.673 lap time, although Keating suffered a sideways moment after his flying lap and was unable to improve.

The LMP2 session was red-flagged with less than two minutes to go after the No. 20 MDK by High Class Racing Oreca of Dennis Andersen spun and stopped on track.

Hawksworth, Ellis Claim Sebring GT Poles

Jack Hawksworth gave Vasser Sullivan GTD Pro pole in the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3, edging out Philip Ellis in the GTD pole-sitting No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Both drivers were the only to dip into the 1:58s, with Hawksworth setting a 1:58.714 to outpace Rolex 24 at Daytona class winner Ellis by 0.064 seconds.

Ferrari Hypercar factory ace Antonio Fuoco put the No. 47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 third on the combined GT grid, followed by fellow GTD competitor Parker Thompson in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus.

Mario Farnbacher completed the top-five and was the second-highest GTD Pro runner in the No. 23 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

The top 11 GT cars were separated by less than one-second.

The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring gets underway Saturday at 9:40 a.m. EDT with live coverage on Peacock and IMSA Radio.

RESULTS: Qualifying

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John