A total of 53 cars from 10 different automotive manufacturers will take the green flag in the 53rd Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 24-25 at Daytona International Speedway.
The annual kick-off to the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season also is the opening round of the Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup. More than 15 hours of live FOX Sports coverage will be available to viewers in the United States beginning with a two-hour FOX network block at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, Jan. 24.

Oswaldo Negri Jr., John Pew, AJ Allmendinger and Matt McMurry will start the 53 Rolex 24 at Daytona from the inside front row after Negri qualified at 1:39.194 in the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian Ligier JS P2 Honda HPD, one of seven cars in the 39s. The Brazilian became the first driver to put a P2 on pole at Daytona.

“I knew that the DPs were going to get pretty close to us in qualifying, especially with the cooler temperatures, and I knew it was going to take everything that car had,” said Negri. “Mike was asking me for two tenths, three tenths, and I was wondering where are we going to find that?”

Almost each lap brought a new polesitter, but it was the teams that had been fast in practice that were fast in qualifying. The No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Riley DP Ford Ecoboost (1:39.309) will start outside the front row. Row 2 will be the No. 02 sister Ganassi car, two hundredths slower than its teammate, with defending Daytona champion No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP alongside.

After struggling in practice, the DeltaWing DWC13 showed some of the form it had demonstrated in testing two weeks ago, turning a lap of 1:39.625 to qualify fifth. The No. 57 Krohn Racing Ligier JS P2 Judd completes the top six, less than half a second behind the pole time.

The Corvette Racing team put whatever demons were haunting them at the Roar Before the 24 test behind them as Oliver Gavin put the No. 4 C7.R he's driving with Tommy Milner and Simon Pagenaud on the GTLM pole with a time of 1:43.488.

Gavin credited a tow from teammate Jan Magnussen with helping set the fast time, a favor he tried to repay once he set pole, assisting Magnussen in moving up to fifth in the No. 3 Corvette C7.R, less than half a second behind and the last car in the 43s.

“We came into this weekend sort of thinking, we’re somewhere around the pace after the Roar, but we didn’t think we had the overall pace to get pole, and I have to say I think I had a perfect qualifying session,” explained Gavin.
“I went out behind Jan and everything just seemed to fall into place with the temperatures and the pressures.
Our car was just a little bit better than Jan’s and I could just keep chipping away, and I got the perfect tow from him when the temperatures and pressures were at their peak.
Without the tow from Jan, I don’t think we would have had the pole.”

In between the Corvettes were Gianmaria Bruni in the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia with a time of 1:43.830; the No. 98 Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8; and the No. 24 BMW Team RLL Z4 GTE, all within 0.16sec. Defending Rolex 24 at Daytona champions Porsche struggled, with the two factory cars and the Team Falken 911 RSRs bringing up the rear.

A race broke out during qualifying for Prototype Challenge, and in the end it was the Johnny Mowlem/Tom Papadopoulos/Tomy Drissi/Brian Alder/Martin Plowman BAR1 Motorsports Oreca FLM09 on the pole. Mowlem qualified the car with a 1:42.318. The No. 54 CORE Autosport car was second, 0.18sec behind. The No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports car was third with a 1:42.829.

A red flag in the middle of GTD qualifying left only one flying lap afterward to attempt a pole winning lap, but it was all James Davison needed as he set the pole time (1:47.272) in the No. 007 TRG-AMR Aston Martin V12 Vantage that he will share with Christina Nielsen, Christopher Nygaard and Brandon Davis. In fact, it was only Davison's third lap of the session.

Until then, it was Jeroen Bleekemolen who was sitting pretty in the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT with a 1:47.424. It was Bleekemolen's teammate Kuno Wittmer that almost ensured Bleekemolen's pole when his rear tire departed the Viper and he ended up parked outside Turn 1. By the time it was cleared, there were only three minutes left in the session, giving drivers only one good shot at improving their time.

There was only one repeated marque in the top six as a pair of Porsches ended up in third and fourth. The No. 28 Konrad Motorsport 911 GT America was third (1:47.451) followed by the No. 58 Wright Motorsports Porsche. Ferrari filled out the top five with the No. 64 Scuderia Corsa 458 Italia and Audi was the fifth marque in the top six with Flying Lizard's No. 45 R8 LMS.

The pole was Davison's fifth GTD pole in a row, going back to the Road America round last season.