Rolex 24 pole position: Mazda tops again - MotorSportsTalk

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. –Oliver Jarvis put the No. 77 Mazda Team Joest on the pole position at Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona for the second consecutive year as Thursday’s qualifying session was cut short by a heavy crash in the top DPI division.

Ricky Taylor crashed Team Penske’s No. 7 Acura with 2 minutes remaining in the session, hitting the tire barrier after losing control in the Bus Stop. After a red flag, officials elected to end the session with 1:42 remaining. Taylor was able to walk away from the wreck. He was evaluated and released from the infield care center.

Jarvis turned a lap of 1 minute, 33.711 seconds on the 3.56-mile road course, nearly breaking the lap record he set in winning last year’s pole.

Juan Pablo Montoya qualified second (1:34.154) with the No. 6 Acura of Team Penske, followed by Jonathan Bomarito’s No. 55 Mazda in third (1:34.169).

The Cadillacs of Felipe Nasr (1:34.294) and Ryan Briscoe (1:34.442 in the No. 10 of defending overall winner Wayne Taylor Racing) rounded out the top five.

Last year, Mazda’s strong start went up in a ball of flames as both of its cars short-circuited from contention with mechanical problems just past the seven-hour mark.

Mazda worked on making its cars more durable throughout the offseason, and Jarvis believes “reliability is not such a concern” with the DPI class entering its fourth year.

“That allows drivers to push much harder right from the green flag,” Jarvis said. “I think we’ve got one of the most competitive fields I’ve ever been involved in motorsports with; some amazing driver lineups throughout the grid. So I think you’ll see some really entertaining racing from the moment the flag drops.”

In the LMP2 class, Ben Keating was fastest with a lap of 1:37.446 in the No. 52 ORECA.

In the GTLM division, Nick Tandy (who also happens to be a fan of the Daytona 500) set a track record of 1:42.207 (breaking his previous mark of 1:42.257) and also tied Scott Pruett’s record for most Rolex 24 Hour pole positions (four). Tandy also won the pole in 2013, ’16 and ’19.

Tandy edged his teammate Laurens Vanthoor. Antonio Garcia qualified third in the No. 3 Corvette.

In the GTD class, Zacharie Robichon put the No. 9 Porsche 911 of Pfaff Motorsports on the pole with a track-record lap of 1:45.237.

The No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 of AIM Vasser Sullivan will be starting from the rear of the field after the team wasn’t able to change an engine in time for qualifying.

Two-time defending NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Busch will be making his Rolex 24 debut in the No. 14, sharing the car with Jack Hawksworth, Parker Chase and Michael De Quesada.

Click here for full qualifying results

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports

Mazda wins Rolex 24 pole for second consecutive year at Daytona

Winner Josef Newgarden earns $3.666 million from a record Indy 500 purse of $17 million