Dries Vanthoor stays perfect in IMSA qualifying at Laguna Seca

Dries Vanthoor and BMW M Team RLL are still perfect in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying in 2025.

For the fourth straight race, the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Vanthoor and Philipp Eng will start on pole position, leading the field to the green flag in Sunday’s Monterey SportsCar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, but it wasn’t by much, as the Belgian only secured his fourth consecutive GTP pole by 0.005s.

Halfway into the 15-minute session, Vanthoor took provisional pole with a 1m12.854s, only 0.4s behind the GTP course record established last year.

With five minutes left, the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Matt Campbell set a 1m12.859s, to secure second on the grid for the ‘Cam-Jam’ combo of Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet.

Starting directly behind the No. 24 BMW is the undefeated No. 7 Penske Porsche of Nick Tandy and Felipe Nasr — the Brazilian set a 1m12.932s to go third-quickest.

Ricky Taylor was late to begin his time attack but it was effective all the same — the blue No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R went fourth-fastest, a solid result for the struggling Cadillac squad. Then it was Tom Blomqvist, rounding out the top five in the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06. Sheldon van der Linde qualified sixth in the No. 25 RLL BMW.

WTR’s Jordan Taylor, MSR’s Nick Yelloly, Cadillac Whelen super-sub Frederik Vesti, and JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Gianmaria Bruni rounded out the top ten from qualifying — and the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie of Roman de Angelis, while last, was solidly within a second of the rest of the more established hybrid LMDh runners.

Thanks to a superb lap from Giacomo Altoe in the final seconds of GTD PRO qualifying, DragonSpeed’s “hypebeast” Ferrari 296 GT3 will start on the class pole position for the second straight race.

With its new Anti Social Social Club livery, the No. 81 Ferrari looked quick throughout the 15-minute session, but it seemed as if the Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs wouldn’t be toppled. The No. 4 of Nicky Catsburg set the initial benchmark before Alexander Sims in the No. 3 set a 1m20.673s to take provisional pole halfway through.

Altoe chipped away at the deficit but could seemingly do no better than second place, but on his last flying lap, he drove the yellow and pink Ferrari up to pole position with a 1m20.608s.

Sims got kicked down to the second row of the grid after the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper set a 1m20.644s right at the checkered flag. The No. 3 Corvette will start third, ahead of the No. 77 AO Racing “Roxy” Porsche 911 GT3 R of Klaus Bachler who was fourth-quickest.

The margins were razor-thin here as well — Altoe, Harper, and Sims were covered by just 0.065s.

Catsburg rounded out the top five, then it was Andrea Caldarelli in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 in sixth, and GTD PRO points leader Frederic Vervisch in the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 in seventh.

Korthoff Competition Motors’ No. 32 Mercedes-AMG GT3 will start on the pole in GTD as California native Kenton Koch set a new class lap record, edging out the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette for pole position by 0.009s.

Koch set the initial benchmark time with a 1m21.010s, before others including Heart of Racing Team’s Casper Stevenson and DXDT’s Alec Udell broke the 1m21s barrier. Koch’s next flying lap, a 1m20.810, broke the course record set last year.

Udell came around second later but his 1m20.819s wasn’t enough to dislodge Koch from the top spot.

Stevenson ended up third in his No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 with a 1m20.933s, and then it was Onofrio Triarsi, who qualified an impressive fourth in the No. 023 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari — the one that had been rebuilt after its heavy crash at the 12 Hours of Sebring.

GTD Championship leader Russell Ward and the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG were fifth, followed by Danny Formal in the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini.

The Monterey SportsCar Championship starts Sunday at 12:10 p.m. PT (local time) airing on Peacock in the United States and in most other countries on the official IMSA YouTube channel and IMSA.tv.

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