Ross Gunn and the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin will start the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Series Championship at Lime Rock Park from pole position after the Briton bested the rest of the GT Daytona Pro field by nearly two-tenths of a second.
It was a remarkable performance by the Aston Martin factory driver and puts Heart of Racing in its best position this season to secure a win on the difficult-to-pass bull ring.

The honors in looked destined to be headed the way of Antonio Garcia, who carried over his free practice pace into the qualifying session.
Garcia was the quickest GTD Pro driver from the moment the session went green, besting his own time on a number of occasions.

With the Aston Martin’s tires up to temperature, Gunn laid down a record-setting 50.593s to leapfrog the Corvette. Jack Hawksworth soon followed suit in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC-F GT3 with a time of 50.784s to move onto the front row, relegating the No. 3 Corvette to the second row of the grid.

Jules Gounon’s No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 was fourth and Patrick Pilet in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R was fifth.

In GT Daytona, Mike Skeen in the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG secured pole with a time of 51.517s, an astounding 0.007s ahead Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720s GT3. Misha Goikhberg’s No. 78 Forte Racing powered by USRT Lamborghini Huracan GT3 rounded out the top three in GTD.

Garcia goes under old track record, will roll off third on grid in GT-only showcase

LAKEVILLE, Conn. (July 21, 2023) – Corvette Racing and Antonio Garcia will charge toward the first corner for the Northeast Grand Prix on Saturday from inside the second row after a third-place result in qualifying Friday at Lime Rock Park.

Garcia, in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, set a best time of 50.897 (104.257 mph) in a record-breaking, 15-minute session around the 1.474-mile, seven turn Lime Rock layout.

He’ll start Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race and will team with Jordan Taylor the same duo that won the GT-only race in 2021 with the No. 3 Corvette.

The five cars in the GTD PRO class were under the previous track record of 51.079; they were all separated by 0.481 seconds.
Garcia set the fastest GTD PRO lap in Friday’s first practice and was quickest overall in the final session prior to qualifying.
That’s a good sign for the long-run pace of the Corvette, which won for the first time this year two weeks ago at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

While the Garcia/Taylor pairing currently sits third in points, the No. 3 Corvette is in the thick of the GTD PRO championships, with 109 points separating the team from the class-leading No. 14 Lexus in the standings.

With six victories at the 1.474-mile, seven-turn road course in northwestern Connecticut, no team in IMSA history has won more times at Lime Rock than Corvette Racing. In fact, no team in the paddock has half the number of victories at the circuit.

This is the first of two races this season to feature only GTD PRO and GTD cars, the second coming at Virginia International Raceway in August.
Of note, six of Corvette Racing’s 126 victories worldwide have been overall wins, including the 2021 Lime Rock win for the No. 3 Corvette.

The FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park is scheduled for 12:10 p.m. ET on Saturday.
The race will air live on the USA and stream live on Peacock inside the United States and IMSA.com outside the U.S.
IMSA Radio will also air the race beginning at 11:30 a.m. ET at IMSA.com with the race call also on XM 207 and SiriusXM Online 992.

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – QUALIFIED THIRD IN GTD PRO:

“It was a bit messy with the traffic, for sure.
Obviously, in practice, it is way easier to find a rhythm and finding a gap. Here everyone was finding their way in, and I didn’t quite manage to do it. It doesn’t mean I would have done anything different.
The balance of the car changed a tiny bit compared to practice. It just wasn’t quite there. We know that we can go from there and that we have a decent race car.”