The English rider Oliver Jarvis emerged as the great surprise of the day of classification of the 24 Hours of Daytona to overcome the favorites, beat the circuit record and win the ‘pole’.
All that was achieved by the 35-year-old Englishman, who led the Mazda Team Joest team after completing the fastest lap of the circuit in a time of 1: 33.685, which allowed him to leave his team with the pole prize. when the race starts this Saturday at 3:00 pm local time (20:00 GMT).
The great performance of Jarvis also allowed him to beat for two tenths of a second the mark of the circuit that had been established 26 years ago, in 1993, by the American pilot P.J. Jones, in the GTP category with a Toyota car.
Jarvis placed the No. 77 Mazda in the privileged position for the 24 Hours of Daytona 2019 with a time of 1: 33.685 in the fifth round, after an average of 1:34 in the first four of the way.
The time was fast enough to overtake his teammate, Jonathan Bomarito, who runs with number 55 and eventually finished fourth (1: 34.212).
After the surprise of Jarvis will be the Acura DPi of Team Penske. The American Ricky Taylor made the second fastest time (1: 33.875) with the No.7 car, which will also be piloted by the Brazilian veteran Helio Castroneves and the local Alexander Rossi.
Another Latin American driver, the Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, made a great classification to be third, also with the Penske team, but with his car No.6, which eventually took a time of 1: 34.095 to occupy the third place.
The companions of Montoya are the American Dane Cameron and the Frenchman Simon Pagenaud.
The fifth place was also obtained by another Latin American driver, the Brazilian Felipe Nasr, the IMSA champion, who with the Cadillac DPi No.31, of the Whelen Engineering Racing team, set a time of 1: 34.433.
Jordan Taylor, the companion of the Spanish driver Fernando Alonso, with the Cadillac DPi No.10, of the team Wayne Taylor, achieved the sixth position after completing the fifth round with a record of 1: 34.479, which leaves all the options open when I start the race.
The good work of Taylor at the wheel of the car allowed his team to overcome the best mark of the day that in the second training session Alonso had achieved with a time of 1: 35.924.
The Argentine Agustín Canapino, from the Juncos Racing team, with his No.50 Cadillac DPi car finished seventh and a time of 1: 34.679, which also gives them the chance to compete well in the race.
The frustration of the day was experienced by the Mustang Sampling Racing team, which includes the current defending champions, the Portuguese Joao Barbosa and Felipe Albuquerque, along with the Brazilian Christian Fittipaldi, and the Englishman Mike Conway, who were unable to go out on track. make time and occupy the last place on the grid of the 11 DPi cars that will be in the race.
After qualifying the third practice session was developed and none of the cars could go below the minute and 34 seconds with Loic Duval, of the CORE autosport team, as leader, after driving the No.54 Nissan DPi achieved a time of 1 : 34.786.
Albuquerque was able to race with the No.5 Cadillac DPi and marked the fastest lap of his team, a time of 1: 34.905, which left the entire team happy for the race on Saturday.
While the Japanese Kamui Kobayashi, Alonso’s teammate, made the best time for the Wayne Taylor Racing team, marking a record of 1: 35.374, which was his fastest lap.
This allowed him to be the protagonist in the press conference, in which he joked that he was finally allowed to answer questions because the last time they were all for Alonso.
“That’s why I’m happy,” joked Kobayashi, then assured that the team was well prepared, had all the information they needed and hoped to make a great career.
The ‘pole’ for the LMP2 category, where this year only four cars compete, was for James Allen, of DragonSpeed, who made a time of 1: 35.904, more than half a second ahead of Gabriel Aubry, of PR1.
In GT Le Mans, Nick Tandy took the pole with the Porsche for more than 0.3 seconds, with four different brands occupying the first four places in the category.
The Porsche No.911 eclipsed the best effort of the current champion Jan Magnussen, of the Corvette Racing team, which ran with the Chevrolet Corvette C7.R No.3 and has the Spanish Antonio Garcia as a partner.
