| No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R two-tenths of a second off pole time |
| MONTEREY, Calif. (May 13, 2023) — Cadillac Racing will start on the outside of Rows 2 and 3 Sunday in the 2-hour, 40-minute MOTUL Course de Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Pipo Derani recorded a best lap of 1 minute, 15.007 seconds in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R in the 20-minute qualifying session on the 2.238-mile, 11-turn road course to secure the fourth starting position in the nine-car IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Grand Touring Prototype field.  Derani was two-tenths of a second off the pole-winning time of the No. 7 Porsche 963, which marked the fourth different pole sitter in as many races. Derani, who earned the pole for the Twelve Hours of Sebring in March, and Alexander Sims will aim to earn their second victory of the season.Sebastien Bourdais, driving the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R, qualified sixth with a lap of 1:15.335. Bourdais will share driving duties with Renger van der Zande, who will be making his 100th start in all classes of North American sports car racing.NBC will televise the race at 3 p.m. ET Sunday, with streaming in the U.S. on Peacock and outside the U.S. on IMSA.com/TVLive. The race will be broadcast on IMSA.com, RadioLeMans.com and on SiriusXM (XM 207, Web/App 992). |
| No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.RSebastien Bourdais, Renger van der ZandeBourdais drove in the 20-minute qualifying session (qualified sixth at 1 minute, 15.335 seconds on 7 laps): “I really wasn’t expecting what we got. Balance didn’t seem to be too bad but was low on grip. I didn’t put the lap together that I really wanted to be further up the grid. Not being able to do a qualifying sim this morning really hurt us. So, we’ll see what tomorrow brings. It will be similar (weather) conditions, so we’ll work on the car and get the balance right for long stints and the tire deg.” No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.RPipo Derani, Alexader SimsDerani drove in the 20-minute qualifying session (qualified fourth at 1 minute, 15.007 seconds on 8 laps): “I’m quite happy with this qualifying. I think I extracted everything I could from the car. Sometimes you come away with a pole position and you’re like ‘oh, I think we could have done better,’ and today we came away with P4 and I think my lap was quite good. Obviously, we wanted to be a little bit further up the grid but it’s very tight – two-tenths from P1 – so just one of those days where you have to be happy with P4 because you know you extracted everything you could out of the car. I think we have a very good car for the race, especially thinking long stints and tire deg.” |