Franco, Braun Claim COTA Poles

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Manny Franco and Colin Braun have scored pole positions for the pair of Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS races at Circuit of The Americas.

Franco took the No. 21 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 to a fast lap of 2:05.570 on a drying circuit in Q1 that saw times tumble throughout the 15-minute session.

His lap was 0.384 seconds quicker than the No. 94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT3 of Chandler Hull, with Eric Filgueiras third in the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Seth Lucas qualified the No. 53 MDK Motorsports Porsche fourth for Race 1, with Will Hardeman scoring top qualifying honors in Pro-Am in the No. 19 Esses Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with the fifth quickest time overall.

The lone Am class entry, the No. 43 Bartone Bros Racing by RealTime Mercedes of Anthony Bartone, qualified an impressive eighth out of the 17-car field.

Q2 saw quicker times across the board, with Braun’s 2:03.690 putting CrowdStrike by Riley on overall pole, ahead of the No. 28 RS1 Porsche of Stevan McAleer, who claimed Pro class pole honors.

The No. 33 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari of Ryan Dalziel set an identical 2:03.741 time to McAleer and is set to start third on the grid for Race 2, followed by TR3 Racing’s Daniel Morad and Elliott Skeer of Wright Motorsports, who completed the top-five overall.

Race 1 gets underway at 3:10 p.m. CT with Race 2 taking the green flag Sunday at 2:15 p.m. CT, with both 90-minute races streamed live on SRO’s GT World YouTube page.

RESULTS: Qualifying 2

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