Jack Aitken hands Cadillac pole for 2026 Daytona 24 Hours
- Aaron Carroll
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
Jack Aitken has given Cadillac and Whelen Engineering pole position for the 2025 Daytona 24 Hours, with him Earl Bamber, Frederick Vesti and Connor Zilisch and the rest of the No.31 crew set to lead the field to green on Saturday.
The No.43 InterEuropol is on pole in LMP2, with the No.3 Pratt Miller Corvette and the No.27 Aston Martin from Heart of Racing on pole in GTD Pro and GTD respectively. Read how it unfolded below.
The results
GTP - Top 5
No.31 Whelen Cadillac - J. Aitken - 1:33.93
No.93 Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) Acura - R. van der Zande - +0.10s
No.40 Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) Cadillac - L. Deletraz - +0.13s
No.7 Porsche Penske Motorsport - F. Nasr - +0.24s
No.60 Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) Acura - T. Blomqvist - +0.29s
LMP2 - Top 5
No.43 InterEuropol Competition - J. Clarke - 1:39.95
No.99 AO Racing - P.J. Hyett - +0.00s
No.22 United Autosports - D. Goldburg - +0.14s
No.52 Bryan Herta Autosport - B. Keating - +0.59s
No.11 TDS Racing - T. Lütke - +0.67s
GTD Pro - Top 5
No.3 Pratt Miller Corvette - A. Sims - 1:45.10
No.1 Paul Miller BMW - N. Verhagen - +0.17s
No.59 RLL McLaren - D. MacDonald - +0.31s
No.75 75 Express Mercedes - M. Engel - +0.34s
No.033 Triarsi Competizione - A. Rovera - +0.40s
GTD - Top 5
No.27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin - Z. Robichon - 1:45.11
No.57 Winward Mercedes - P. Ellis - +0.07s
No.96 Turner Motorsports BMW - R. Foley - +0.15s
No.36 DXDT Corvette - C. Eastwood - +0.16s
No.19 van der steur Aston Martin - V. Hasse Clot - +0.26s
As it happened
The 2026 IMSA Sportscar season is upon us, and got underway this afternoon in Daytona, Florida, with qualifying for the biggest race on the North American Sportscars calendar.
GTD
First up on the track was the GTD class, as with every class, they'd have 15 minutes to set their best laps.
Cars quickly piled out of the pit lane, with most cars coming onto the track in one big group. The No.36 DXDT Corvette of Charlie Eastwood appeared to be going slowly early on in an attempt to get some good track position. A tow around the banking here could be worth tonnes of lap time.
Trent Hindman in the No.45 Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) Lamborghini was the first down below a 1:50, even dipping into the 48's. Giacamoe Altoe in the No.81 DragonSpeed Corvette followed suit by going half a second quicker.
Eastwood quickly beat both times, down into the 1:46's. Hindman went two tenths quicker, but it was clear as we came to the halfway point that drivers were still getting up to speed in terms of tyre temperatures.
Antonio Fuoco in the No.21 AF Corse went top with a 45.6, with Eastwood returning to the top again with a 45.2, with Robichon in the No.27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin going a tenth quicker.
Both of those lap times were already under the best GTD or GTD Pro lap times from last years qualifying sessions. Valentin Hasse Clot in the No.19 van der steur slotted into third, a further tenth back from Robichon in the other Aston.
Robby Foley in the No.96 Turner BMW went less than 0.01s quicker than Eastwood, putting his M4 into second with three and half minutes to go in the session. That car was reported to have a puncture at the very beginning of the session, so the team done well to get Foley turned around and back out onto the track.
Robichon pit a minute later, he felt he had found the best of his tyres. Phillip Ellis put pressure on the Aston's lap time though, putting his No.57 Mercedes just 0.07s behind the pole time, into second.
The checkered flag flew, and despite their best efforts, no one could top Robichon's time. The No.27 Aston Martin will lead the GTD's away in tomorrow's Daytona 24 Hours.
GTD Pro
It was more GT3 cars taking to the track for 15 minutes of qualifying this time around. The difference? The FIA driver grading of the drivers in this session is higher than those in GTD.
The times went lower much quicker in this session than the last. Dean MacDonald in the No.59 RLL McLaren set the pace early, with a 1:46.7. Still over a second and a half off the GTD pole with ten minutes left in the session.
The first one into the 1:45s was Neil Verhagen in the No.1 Paul Miller BMW, with a 45.7. Davide Rigon went slightly quicker in the No.62 Risi Ferrari, but it was MacDonald and Verhagen improving just behind. The BMW sat two tenths ahead of the McLaren, on a 1:45.2.
Luca Stolz slotted into third with a 45.6 in the No.48 Winward Mercedes, but not for long, with Fred Vervisch almost immediately going a tenth quicker in the No.65 Ford. Maro Engel jumped both in the No.75 75 Express Mercedes.
Alexander Sims found almost two tenths on the provisional pole time in the No.3 Pratt Miller Corvette, he had come into the pits after scrubbing a first set of tyres. Meanwhile Verhagen was also in and out of the pits for fresh rubber.
MacDonald improved marginally to get ahead of Engel once again, with 0.02s separating third and fourth.
Sims held on until the end with that lap, putting Corvette at the head of all GTD's for the 2026 Daytona 24 Hours.
Only one of the Pro cars beat Robichon's GTD pole time, but that doesn't matter, as the two classes will be split on the grid. So all 15 GTD Pros will start ahead of all 21 GTD.
LMP2
13 Oreca 07 LMP2s were the penultimate group onto the circuit. This session was competed by all of the bronze drivers, as mandated by IMSA.
There was some action on their warm-up laps, with Ben Keating going wide at turn 1 in the No.52 Bryan Herta car, then following that up with a spin on the exit of turn 4.
Somewhat unlike the GT classes, the lap times came down much slower in this session. The first lap-time under a 1:41 came from Daniel Goldburg in the No.22 United Autosports entry, but there was more time to find for the drivers.
Jeremy Clarke in the No.43 InterEuropol car had a lock-up and almost lost it on the approach to turn 1, but made an impressive save to keep the car pointing in the right direction.
Goldburg got his time down to a 1:40.1 with five minutes to go, he sat ahead of Clarke and Keating, who had both redeemed themselves after their mistakes. But both were over half a second off the top time.
But PJ Hyett was the first one under a 1:40 in the No.99 AO Racing car. A 1:39.9 put him two tenths clear of Goldburg. It only lasted half a lap though, Clarke took the top time by 0.008s. Barely anything splitting the top times with two and a half minutes left.
Hyett had his own lock-up and almost spin into turn 1, seeming like the wind is catching the drivers out there. Clarke made the same mistake again 30 seconds later.
When the checkered flag flew the No.18 Era Motorsports car of Naveen Rao found himself spun and on the grass on the exit of turn 4, but he got going again.
So it was Clarke and InterEuropol on pole then, no one able to top his laptime in the end. He was followed by Hyett and Goldburg.
GTP
The final 15 minutes of qualifying went to the GTPs, the cars that will be fighting for the overall victory come Sunday, but first they had to set the grid.
Most of the cars took the opportunity to scrub a set of tyres on their first out lap, engineers already thinking of the race before the grid is even set.
Marco Wittmann in the No.25 BMW had a spin entering turn 1. Looking to be very similar to the issues some of the LMP2 drivers had, but unfortunately for WRT, Wittmann couldn't save it.
Jack Aitken was at the top at the halfway point when we started to see some quicker lap times. Dries Vanthoor quickly went ahead though, so definitely much more time to come from these prototypes.
Renger van der Zande in the No.93 Acura went to the top with a 1:34.0, beginning to set the representative pace for the session. Aitken in the No.31 Cadillac sat two tenths back, with Tom Blomqvist in the No.60 Acura was a further half a tenth adrift.
Felipe Nasr was going quickly with five minutes left, but lost time in the final sector to only go fourth. He tried again on his next lap, setting his second consecutive purple sector one, but again losing time in the final sector.
Aitken was the first into the 1:33s, with a 33.9. Van der Zande was still second, but Louis Deletraz in the No.40 Cadillac sat 0.02 behind in third. Nasr slotted into fourth, another tenth back.
Van der Zande had a mechanical in the final minute of the session, but he managed to pull it back into the pits without need for a session stoppage.
That was all she wrote in terms of improvement, so Aitken in the No.31 Whelen car took pole position for the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2026.
