GTD PRO Sees Record Lap; GTD Qualifying Truncated
By David Phillips
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Vasser Sullivan Racing w/Dreyer & Reinbold’s Jack Hawksworth laid down a sizzling lap in the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 midway through today’s qualifying session to claim the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) Motul Pole Award for tomorrow’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
Although Hawksworth’s best lap of 1 minute, 43.701 seconds (118.434 mph) was a comfortable four tenths of a second quicker than his competition for most of the session, his qualifying run was not without its challenges.
A shuffling of the day’s schedule resulted in the session kicking-off some three hours later than planned, putting the dozen GTD PRO cars on track in the cool of the evening rather than the late afternoon heat.
“Definitely a strange day,” said Hawksworth, who set a new qualifying record in the cooler conditions that beat the previous mark of 1:44.203 set in 2024.
“It feels like we’ve been here for 24 hours. We practiced in the morning and then had to sit around for seven or eight hours before we qualified.”
What’s more, at the end of a long day Hawksworth and company had to deal with what amounted to an unfamiliar track, given that some curbing on the entrance to the Bus Stop (Turn 5) had been removed after it began coming apart during the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race earlier in the day.
“The changes to the Bus Stop were pretty dramatic,” Hawksworth said. “So going out there trying to figure out the track and understand how much curbing to take was interesting . . .
“It was wildly different, it changed the whole feel,” he continued. “Now you can almost carry the car out to the fence, kind of like the NASCAR guys do, and it doesn’t affect the car. (But) you’ve got that guardrail and normally when we get that close to the guardrail it’s second or third gear corners so it’s easy to judge where the side of the car is. But when you’re in fourth gear entering the corner at 110 mph it’s a challenge.”
Doubtless the Vasser Sullivan Lexus team had a few uncomfortable moments in the waning minutes of the session as, first, Harry King posted a 1:43.914 in AO Racing’s No. 77 “Rexy” Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) to halve Hawksworth’s margin. Then Neil Verhagen nearly joined the “1:43 club” with a 1:44.089 in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO, as all were under the previous record lap.
And while no other car or driver threatened for pole, when the checkered flag waved the first six cars representing six different manufacturers were within eight tenths of a second of the No. 14 Lexus, which Hawksworth will share Sunday with Ben Barnicoat.
This bodes for a hectic six hours of racing, according to Hawksworth, who earned his 17th pole in IMSA competition and, in doing so, broke a tie with Ben Keating for the most pole positions in the modern era of IMSA.
“A lot can happen. You want to be up front and out of (the chaos),” he said. “There will be laps behind the safety car, there will be decisions made on the pit, there will be decisions made on the racetrack and hopefully we can make good ones and hopefully win the race.”
GTD: Heart of Racing Team Up Front by Points
Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) qualifying ultimately proved anticlimactic thanks to a red flag that effectively ended the session before the guaranteed minimum green flag time of running had been completed. Ten minutes are required to be green in the 15-minute session. Per IMSA rules, the 20-car field grid for tomorrow’s race will be based on the current team championship points standings.
Thus the Heart of Racing Team’s No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo will start first beside Turner Motorsport’s No. 96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO with the No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 of Vasser Sullivan Racing w/Dreyer & Reinbold lining up third.
“I don’t think I’d call it pole,” said Heart of Racing’s Zacharie Robichon, who along with Tom Gamble won in GTD last year with third driver Casper Stevenson. It’s Robichon and Gamble’s new 2026 teammate – Eduardo “Dudu” Barrichello – who leads the GTD driver points entering Sunday’s race and was key in this car starting first.
“I think we’re just starting from first. It’s definitely too bad that we weren’t able to get a proper session in because I think there were a couple of cars that would have battled it out.
“But it’s a great place to start. Obviously, there’s a benefit to leading the championship when things do go awry. So, we’ll go for a good clean race. It can get pretty chaotic here, so I think if we can keep our nose clean, we’ll be happy.”
The reason for the red flag in-session was an incident for the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. The car entered the weekend fourth in the team points.
Sunday’s race goes green at 12:10 p.m. ET, streaming on Peacock in the U.S. and internationally via IMSA’s Official YouTube channel and IMSA.TV.