Date: July 25, 2013 Event: Brickyard Grand Prix (Round 8 of 12) Series: Daytona Prototype division of the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Location: Indianapolis Motor Speedway (2.534 -mile, 13-turn road course) Pole Winner: Jordan Taylor of Wayne Taylor Racing (1:22.251 at 110.909 mph)
The No. 10 Velocity Worldwide Corvette Dallara DP of Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) will start Friday’s GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Brickyard Grand Prix from pole for the fourth race in a row after qualifying Thursday afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Jordan Taylor, the 22-year-old first-year co-driver with veteran Italian Max Angelelli, with whom he leads the Rolex Series team and driver championship, clocked a fast lap of 1 minute, 22.251 seconds at 110.909 mph around the 2.534-mile, 13-turn Formula 1 road circuit at Indianapolis, tops among the 35 car-and-driver combinations that will take the green flag for Friday’s three-hour race.
“It was obviously good,” said Taylor, who scored his first two career Daytona Prototype-class poles May 31 on the Streets of Belle Isle temporary circuit in downtown Detroit and June 14 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington. “We didn’t start out all that strong, trying a few different things. It’s a very unique track with a very long front straight and then a very technical section, so you have to decide whether to go high-downforce or low-downforce. We tried a few things in practice to figure out what we wanted and we were not even in the top-10 in a couple of sessions. So, we were a little worried, but we knew, once we were in qualifying mode, we’d have a good car. And, obviously, we did. I’m happy to be on the pole. It’s not an Indy 500 pole, but it’s definitely cool, anything at Indianapolis in motorsports, in any form. To get this pole is awesome. I had a pole at Detroit, which is pretty cool on a street course. I qualified second at Daytona twice, so I think I need to nail that one down, next.”
Taylor, who co-drove to victories this season with Angelelli at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham in April and at Detroit, scored six GT-class poles in his 44 career Rolex Series starts prior to this season. Angelelli and Taylor also started from the pole at the most recent race, the June 30 Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International, by virtue of their top position in the point standings after qualifying was rained out, per the GRAND-AM rulebook.
The top-five qualifiers for Friday’s Brickyard Grand Prix are:
1. Wayne Taylor Racing (No. 10 Corvette DP) with Jordan Taylor and Max Angelelli (1:22.251 at 110.909 mph).
2. Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (No. 01 BMW Riley) with Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett (1:22.375 at 110.742 mph).
3. Michael Shank Racing (No. 6 Ford Riley) with Gustavo Yacaman and A.J. Allmendinger (1:22.455 at 110.635 mph).
4. Action Express Racing (No. 5 Corvette DP) with Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa (1:22.544 at 110.516 mph).
5. 8 Star Motorsports (No. 3 Corvette DP) with Stephane Sarrazin, Enzo Potolicchio and Michael Valiante (1:22.553 at 110.504).
Race time is 5:30 p.m. EDT Friday with delayed television provided by SPEED beginning at 7:30 p.m. Live radio on the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 90 begins at 5:15 p.m. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions can be found at www.grand-am.com, and on mobile devices at m.grand-am.com and the GRAND-AM smartphone app.
ABOUT VELOCITY WORDWIDE – Velocity Worldwide is a global customer engagement agency with headquarters in New York, London, Dublin and Belfast.Velocity Worldwide has converged all digital and traditional communication channels into a single, unique platform called Darius. The Darius platform helps companies and brands create a continual conversation “eco-system” that enables them to meaningfully engage with and measure all interactions with their target audience.