AUSTIN, Texas - Porsche Team has captured its fifth consecutive pole position in as many races to kick off the FIA World Endurance Championship season, following a great run from Neel Jani and Marc Lieb in the team’s No. 18 Porsche 919 Hybrid.
This pole came as arguably the biggest surprise of the season; a boost issue was reported on Jani’s first lap but after a quick pit stop and check over, the car went back out and set the fastest lap time.
Jani, Lieb and Romain Dumas share the No. 18 car, which is yet to win this year after the No. 19 and No. 17 Porsche have won the last two WEC rounds at Le Mans and Nürburgring, respectively.
KCMG was due to score pole in LMP2 but only after 10 p.m. ET, the team had its pole canceled after the No. 47 Oreca 05 Nissan went the wrong way on track after stopping earlier in the session.
While Richie Stanaway and Fernando Rees secured the GTE-Pro pole in the No. 99 Aston Martin Vantage V8, the bigger story in the GTE ranks came in GTE-Am, where Patrick Long and Patrick Dempsey took the pole in their No. 77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR.
Long set the car’s fastest lap time but Dempsey was no slouch himself, en route to his first career pole position.
Those two share the car with the frequently overlooked but frequently fast German, Marco Seefried.
Saturday’s Six Hours of Circuit of the Americas goes green from 5 p.m. CT and local time.