While the Roar traditionally has been three days devoted exclusively to testing for the WeatherTech Championship and IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, there were a few additions to this year’s Roar that “counted.”
Leading the way in a back-and-forth 15-minute session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Prototype class was Brazilian driver Felipe Nasr in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R with a best time of 1 minute, 35.806 seconds (133.764 mph). Nasr was first in a top-four sweep for Cadillac, which is looking for its second consecutive Rolex 24 win after taking its debut race last year.
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The strong pace shown by Cadillac, which led every session throughout the first two days of the Roar Before The Rolex 24 At Daytona test, carried into Sunday’s inaugural Roar qualifying session. The new-for-2018 qualifying sessions establish the garage and pit locations each team will use during the Rolex 24 At Daytona race weekend on Jan. 25-28.
Leading the way in a back-and-forth 15-minute session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Prototype class was Brazilian driver Felipe Nasr in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R with a best time of 1 minute, 35.806 seconds (133.764 mph). Nasr was first in a top-four sweep for Cadillac, which is looking for its second consecutive Rolex 24 win after taking its debut race last year.
“All I have to say, is we as a team, Action Express and Cadillac, we brought the car out there to run the most amount of laps,” Nasr said. “We were really getting into it and preparing for the race, because we know this weekend is more a part of what is going to come at the end of the month. We all felt pretty confident. We felt the car was behaving well.
“Today in qualifying, all I have to say, is myself and Filipe (Albuquerque), that was driving our sister car, we gave everything we had. The times were pretty close. There are some cars out there that aren’t showing fully what they can do, but I know we are. I’m pretty happy with what we have right now.”
Nasr is pleased to be back racing in the Rolex 24 At Daytona,...
Starting From 8 th position he worked his way up to 1st position taking an impressive first win of the season in the LMP3 division of the IMSA Prototypes challenge presented by Mazda.