LONG BEACH, Calif. — Jordan Taylor was always in the hunt for the GT Daytona Pro Motul Pole Award on Friday at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. He just waited until the last possible instant to clinch it.
Through the first 10 minutes of the 15-minute IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying session, Taylor’s No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD traded fast times with Connor De Phillippi’s No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 and the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche GT3 R of Mathieu Jaminet.
All were within a tenth of a second of De Phillippi’s hot lap of 1 minute, 18.115 seconds. Figuring there was no more left in the BMW, De Phillippi pitted with under three minutes left in the session. Jaminet followed suit a minute later.
Undeterred, Taylor kept after it and hustled around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile street circuit in 1:18.048 to grab the pole just after the checkered flag waved.
“We definitely put a lot of emphasis on qualifying,” Taylor said. “It’s so difficult to pass here, and especially with ABS (anti-lock braking system used by both GTD PRO and GT Daytona cars), it’s that much tougher, so track position is very important. The times were really tight. I thought my first lap (1:18.173) was quite good, so I was a little disappointed when Connor beat it.
“I didn’t know that I could go quicker but I thought I’d give it a try. I knew the fuel load would burn off. As a driver, you can’t always feel that, but the car gets quicker. The balance also changed the more laps I did, it shifted to more oversteer, which is what I needed.”
De Phillippi finished second in qualifying, but the No. 25 BMW’s fastest laps were nullified for violating the maximum engine speed permitted by GTD technical regulations. That moved Jaminet to second on the class grid, with Ross Gunn slotting into third in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
It doesn’t matter what car Madison Snow is driving for Paul Miller Racing. He’s a standout qualifier and racer at Long Beach.
For the second straight year, Snow collected the Motul Pole Award in GT Daytona driving the No. 1 PMR entry on the Southern California street course. This time, however, it came in the BMW M4 GT3 that the team switched to for 2022 after campaigning a Lamborghini Huracán GT3 since 2016.
Snow and co-driver Bryan Sellers will look to repeat their 2021 GTD win in Saturday’s 100-minute race. PMR is still playing catch-up after missing the 2022 season opener, the Rolex 24 At Daytona, while still prepping the new car. With only the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts in the new BMW to date, Snow admitted to jitters heading into qualifying on the tight Long Beach circuit.
“It’s a new car for us, the BMW this year, so I was incredibly nervous going into qualifying on a street course,” Snow said. “This car definitely feels wide and only racing Sebring so far, it’s like where exactly are the corners on the car and are we going to find it out in qualifying? Thankfully, we didn’t hit anything there.”