The Konica Minolta Cadillac V-Performance Racing team will start from pole position for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix featuring America’s Tire 250 tomorrow WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
The IMSA field has been struggling for grip around WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca’s 2.2-miles and 11-turns this weekend. Jordan Taylor behind the wheel of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R was able to get the right set-up on his car and post a time of 1:16.181 that was good for pole position. The Konica Minolta Cadillac team is in search of their first win on the season.
“It was a good lap, we have had a good Cadillac all weekend Renger was fast in practice all week,” Taylor said. “I had a good qualifying set-up that worked over one lap, but in practice we were working on a car that would handle for the whole race. It is nice to start from the pole. We will work from the front and see if we can control it.
Laguna is always a low grip track, you are always sliding around. We focused on the handling toward the end of the stint. Renger is going to finish the race and developed a set-up that best suits him, so hopefully we have the car set-up right so he can battle for the win.”
Eric Curran and Felipe Nasr will start the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R from the fifth row based upon Curran’s qualifying time of 1:17.415.
“We’ve been working a lot to find the best set-up and keep making adjustments this weekend, but it didn’t pay off the way we were hoping it would for that qualifying session,” Curran said. “At this track, there is a small window where the Continentals are the grippiest, and we just didn’t get everything we could in those laps. We aren’t where we want to be but we have strong engineering and the Cadillac is always strong in the race, we just need to find a little bit more speed and make sure it’s good on the long run.”
Filipe Albuquerque and Joao Barbosa will take the green in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R from row six after Barbosa recorded a qualifying time of 1:17.525.
“This is probably what we should expect as far as the conditions tomorrow, so it was good to get these laps in this afternoon so we can keep working on the car for the race,” Barbosa said. “This is not the best track for passing so it is not an ideal starting place, but we can definitely fight from here. It is a long race and anything can happen, Action Express has great pit stops and great strategy so we will analyze everything and work to move forward in the race tomorrow.”
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix featuring America’s Tire 250 will be televised live on Fox Sports 1 (FS1) starting at 5 p.m. ET on Sunday.
