CORVETTE DPs AT DETROIT: Fittipaldi, Chevy Power on Pole Again at Belle Isle
Second straight Belle Isle pole for Action Express No. 5 Corvette Daytona Prototype
· Corvette Daytona Prototypes fill front two rows of Prototype grid
· Marc Goossens second-quickest in Visit Florida Racing Corvette DP
· Corvette DPs unbeaten in Detroit since 2012
DETROIT (June 3, 2016) – Christian Fittipaldi scored his second straight pole position at Belle Isle on Friday to lead a Corvette Daytona Prototype sweep of the two front rows for the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic presented by Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers. Fittipaldi, in Action Express Racing’s No. 5 Mustang Sampling Corvette DP, set a time of 1:23.815 (100.9 mph) ahead of Saturday’s 100-minute race.
It was quite a showing for the Corvette Daytona Prototype program on Chevrolet’s home turf. Only four cars in qualifying went under the 1:25 barrier, and all four were Corvette DPs. It was a close call for Fittipaldi, who drives with Joao Barbosa in a couple of ways. Marc Goossens in Visit Florida Racing’s No. 90 Corvette DP qualified second at 1:23.863 (100.8 mph) – just 0.048 seconds behind Fittipaldi’s pole time. Goossens will drive with Ryan Dalziel with the two coming off a runner-up finish in the most recent IMSA round at Laguna Seca.
The second tense moment was the No. 5 Corvette DP escaping from a spin on Fittipaldi’s final lap where he avoided hitting the concrete-lined walls around the 2.3-mile circuit that sits well within eyesight of Chevrolet’s world headquarters.
The Corvette DP is a perfect four-of-four at Belle Isle with two victories each for Action Express Racing and Wayne Taylor Racing. Ricky Taylor qualified third at 1:24.253 (100.4 mph) in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP that he and brother Jordan drove to victory in Detroit in 2014. The two also won this year at Long Beach as Corvette DPs swept the podium.
Eric Curran qualified fourth in Action Express Racing’s No. 31 Whelen Engineering/Team Fox Corvette DP with a lap of 1:24.337 (100.3 mph). He and Dane Cameron won on Belle Isle last year and lead the IMSA Prototype Driver’s Championship standings after four rounds.
The Corvette DP bodywork reflects the Corvette C7 production lineup. At the heart of the Corvette Daytona Prototype is a purpose-built 5.5-liter Chevrolet LS9 V-8 engine developed by ECR Engines.
The Chevrolet Sports Car Classic presented by Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers is set for 12:40 p.m. ET on Saturday. It will air live on FOX Sports 1 with audio coverage from IMSA Radio is available on IMSA.com.
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI, ACTION EXPRESS RACING NO. 5 MUSTANG SAMPLING CORVETTE DP – POLE-WINNER: “It was pretty interesting today. We had some mechanical problems in the last session. But it’s part of the sport. Sometimes you have perfect days and sometimes you have other days that are not so perfect. Obviously hats off to the boys at Action Express for all the effort they put into the program. I’m happy for Chevy and Mustang Sampling. Let’s try to capitalize on the pole position, and I’m happy we swept both pole position on street tracks this year.”
HOW HARD WERE YOU PUSHING ON THAT LAST LAP? “I was pushing a lot. Ian (Sailors, engineer) had told me the 90 car got pretty close. At that point, my tires were pretty much past their useful life. I knew that if I did a perfect lap I could have gone quicker, but I also knew it was extremely difficult. Unfortunately when I got to the Fountain Turn I lost it. But God was looking after us and we didn’t hit a wall. We’ll clean the car up and see what we can do tomorrow.”
MARC GOOSSENS, VISIT FLORIDA RACING NO. 90 VISITFLORIDA.COM CORVETTE DP – QUALIFIED SECOND: “Since we got here when we did the track walk yesterday, I seemed to like this place but you never know what it’s like until you go out in the race car. Obviously we were moving around a little bit in the first session to study the track and then compare data with Ryan (Dalziel). That’s the advantage of having a teammate like him. I adapted to the track pretty quickly but in the meantime we kept working on the car. It’s not too bad. It’s pretty good for race conditions but I didn’t think we we were going to be this close for qualifying. I was hoping to be on the front row; if not then third. This is rewarding for the whole team and hopefully it motivates everybody to take us to the next level because they definitely deserve it. We’re on the right track; we have to keep pushing everyone together.”
RICKY TAYLOR, WAYNE TAYLOR RACING NO. 10 KONICA MINOLTA CORVETTE DP – QUALIFIED THIRD: “We tried lots of stuff in practice today to make the car better and we weren’t too far off, but then we threw a bunch of big things at it before qualifying. I think we might have gone a bit too far with it because it was definitely a handful. But the good thing is, we definitely have a good idea about what we have to do for the warmup tomorrow morning and then in the race. The qualifying session showed us the direction we now need to go in. We’ll combine our two cars (setups) from today and ideally we’ll end up with a great car for the race.”