Wayne Taylor Racing Qualifying Report

53rd Annual Rolex 24 At Daytona

The No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing will start this weekend’s 53rd annual Rolex 24 At Daytona from the inside of the fourth row after TUDOR United SportsCar Championship qualifying Thursday afternoon at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.

Ricky Taylor, back for his second full season co-driving with his younger brother Jordan Taylor and joined once again this weekend by third driver Max “The Ax” Angelelli, turned a fast lap of 1 minute, 39.888 seconds at 128.304 mph around the 3.56-mile, 11-turn Daytona superspeedway road circuit. It was good for seventh among 53 car-and-driver combinations that will take the green flag Saturday for the traditional season-opening 24-hour endurance marathon.

“That was a long 15-minute qualifying session,” said Ricky Taylor, whose father and team owner Wayne Taylor co-drove with Angelelli and Frenchman Emmanuel Collard to victory in the 2005 Rolex 24. “I was worried at the beginning that we were going to have traffic, but it turned out to not be an issue. We’ve been struggling with the car for some reason today compared to the (Roar Before the 24) test (two weekends ago). And then, unfortunately, our traction control stopped working during that qualifying session, which made things more difficult. I don’t think it’s anything we can’t fix for the race. I think we’ll be OK, especially when it cools down for the race. We’ll be OK. We’ve just got to figure out this traction control issue.”

The top-five qualifiers for the 53rd Rolex 24 At Daytona are:

1. Michael Shank Racing (No. 60 Honda Ligier JS P2) with Oswaldo Negri, John Pew, A.J. Allmendinger and Matt McMurry (1:39.194 at 129.201 mph).

2. Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (No. 01 Ford Riley) with Scott Pruett, Joey Hand, Charlie Kimball and Sage Karam (1:39.302 at 129.061 mph).

3. Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (No. 02 Ford Riley) with Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray (1:39.309 at 129.052 mph).

4. Action Express Racing (No. 5 Corvette DP) with Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastien Bourdais (1:39.569 at 128.716 mph).

5. DeltaWing Racing (No. 0 DeltaWing DWC13 Elan) with Memo Rojas, Katherine Legge, Gabby Chaves and Andy Meyrick (1:39.625 at 128.642 mph).

Race time is 2:10 p.m. EST Saturday with the FOX broadcast network kicking off the television broadcast from 2 to 4 p.m. FOX Sports 2 picks it up from 4 to 8 p.m., followed by FOX Sports 1 from 8 to 10 p.m. The overnight hours will be streamed live via IMSA TV at IMSA.com from 10 p.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday. FOX Sports 1 will carry the remainder of the race beginning at 7 a.m. Sunday. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions is available at IMSA.com and the IMSA smartphone app.