Gil de Ferran drives his Acura ARX-01a to the top time of the day during qualifying at the Mazda Laguna Seca raceway.

SALINAS, Ca — It was an all Acura show Friday afternoon at qualifying for the Monterey Sports Car Championship as Gil de Ferran in Acura ARX 02a led the field as he has all week with the top time of the day. de Ferran, who announced in August his retirement from active driving to concentrate on building his race team, turned a 1:11.206 for the 2.238 mile track.

His nearest competition was the other Acura P1 car, the David Brabham-Scott Sharp Petron Sponsored was second, only .092 of a second behind. In third was the Lowes Fernandez Acura ARX-01B, only .104 seconds off the top time. 

In the highly competitive GT2 class, it was Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnussen in the C6R Corvette taking the top time, with a time 1:23.053, after a less than spectacular performance in Thursday’s practice session. In second was the Ferrari 430 GT of Jaime Melo and X, who were .165 of a second behind. Amazingly, the top eight  GT2 cars were less than a second apart.

In the race between to two green teams it was the Drayson Racing Team finishing in fifth overall and third in class with a 1:12.745 time, with Jonny Cocker doing the honors while the Coursa Racing team was sixth overall and fourth in class with a 1:13.238 time. The battle between these two green teams should be interesting and if they can last the entire four hours you never know what might happen.

The Patron sponsored Acura LMP1 was second fastest during qualifying.