Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix at Laguna Seca
Date: May 2, 2015
Event: Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix (Round 4 of 10)
Series: Prototype division of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship
Location: Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca near Monterey, California (2.238-mile, 11-turn road course)
Pole Winner: Jordan Taylor of Wayne Taylor Racing (1:18.718 at 102.350 mph)
The No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) will start Sunday’s Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix on the pole for the second consecutive race after TUDOR United SportsCar Championship qualifying Saturday evening on the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca road course near Monterey, California.
This time it was Jordan Taylor who did the honors after his older brother Ricky Taylor ended a 17-race streak without a pole for WTR two weeks ago on the Grand Prix of Long Beach (Calif.) seaside street circuit en route to the team’s first victory of the year. Jordan Taylor toured the 2.238-mile, 11-turn hillside road circuit with a fast lap of 1 minute, 18.718 seconds at 102.350 mph Saturday to give WTR its 21st pole since the team was formed in 2007. It was Jordan Taylor’s 10th career pole and first since the July 2013 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It placed him at the front of the 35 car-and-driver combinations that will take the green flag for Sunday’s two-hour, 40-minute event.
“It has been a while since I qualified and, last year when I qualified, it didn’t go so well,” Taylor said. “So, we knew we had a strong car here, and I knew it was a pole car, so I knew if I didn’t get the pole, I would be disappointed. I am happy to get it. It was closer than we thought. Hopefully we can kind of do the same thing we did at Long Beach and lead from the front and dictate the race. I think we have a potential race-winning car. We did a lot of work in practice on separating the two cars (qualifying setup and race setup). We had different setups for both sessions. We worked on the racecar with Ricky because he is going to be in it longer. I think the qualifying car was good. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it was – the drive – but we got the pole and hopefully we will have a good race.”
The top-five qualifiers for Sunday’s Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix at Laguna Seca are:
1. Wayne Taylor Racing (No. 10 Corvette DP) with Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor (1:18.718 at 102.350 mph).
2. Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (No. 01 Ford Riley) with Scott Pruett and Joey Hand (1:18.940 at 102.062 mph).
3. Spirit of Daytona Racing (No. 90 Corvette DP) with Michael Valiante and Richard Westbrook (1:19.448 at 101.410 mph).
4. Michael Shank Racing (No. 60 Honda Ligier JS P2) with John Pew and Oswaldo Negri (1:19.651 at 101.151 mph).
5. Action Express Racing (No. 5 Corvette DP) with Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa (1:19.894 at 100.844 mph).
Race time is 4:05 p.m. EDT Sunday with FOX Sports 1 providing the live telecast beginning at 4 p.m. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions is available at IMSA.com and the IMSA smartphone app.
