Skeen, Lone Star Mercedes-AMG GT3 Claim COTA Pole

Photo: Brian Cleary/PWC

Mike Skeen has claimed pole for this afternoon’s Pirelli World Challenge GT SprintX race at Circuit of The Americas, putting Mercedes-AMG on top of the time sheets.

Skeen stormed to a quick lap of 2:05.664 in the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, edging out the No. 9 K-PAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3 of Alvaro Parente by 0.087 seconds.

It marked the first pole of the season for the team, in its PWC return, with Skeen set to share driving duties with Scott Heckert in the pair of 60-minutes races.

The No. 61 R. Ferri Motorsport Ferrari 488 GT3 of Toni Vilander and Miguel Molina qualified third, ahead of the Jeff Segal-driven No. 31 TR3 Ferrari in fourth and best of the GT3 Pro-Am competitors.

Championship leader Scott Hargrove, who shares the wheel of his No. 96 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R this weekend with Wolf Henzler, completed the top-five overall.

The No. 63 DXDT Racing Mercedes GT3 of David Askew was quickest of the GT Am competitors in 11th overall, while a late flyer by Alan Metni put the No. 99 AM Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car on top in GT Cup.

Daniel Keilwitz and Eric Curran’s Callaway Competition USA Corvette C7 GT3-R did not set a time and will miss this afternoon’s race after electing to rebuild the engine following issues detected on Friday.

Race 1 gets underway at 3:45 p.m. CT with live coverage on World-Challenge.com.

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