LAKEVIEW, Cn — While mother nature played havoc with the racing surface at Lime Rock park Friday afternoon, David Brabham was up to his old tricks as he captured Patrón Highcroft Racing’s third pole position of the ALMS season.
With steady rain falling at Lime Rock throughout the day, Brabham and teammate Simon Pagenaud were second fastest in both practice sessions aboard the Honda Performance Development factory-backed ARX-01c. But when it came time to “dance in the rain”, Brabham was up to the challenge touring the course in 0:0:58.106 for a new quyalifying lap record at almost a 93 mph average.
The times was not only good for the pole but more than a half-second faster than the number two Porsche RS Spyder and nearly two seconds ahead of the third fastest qualifier the Mazda Lola. In fourth place on the grid is the Drayson Lola Judd who were just a tick of the clock behind the Mazda.
On a dry track on Saturday morning showed the fans just how fast the Honda is slicing eight seconds off his qualifying time with a 0:50.700 lap at 106 mph. However, Team Drayson driver Jonny Cocker in the Lola Judd was a blink-of-the-eye behind, just 0.035 seconds off the leader’s pace.
Patrick Long took the Porsche 911 RSR to front of the GT class with a best lap of 1:03.904 or 84.502 mph. He was followed by another Porsche and the Ferarri of Jaimie Mello who clocked in nearly half a second off Long’s pace. Saturday morning, however, it was the BMWs of the Rahal-Letterman stable that led the practice session on the dry track while the pole setting Porsche was third, three tenths of a second off the time driven by Long.
Complete qualifying results can be found here.
All photos by Dave R. Johnson Photography.
