Ellis, Foley Split COTA Poles in Hard-Fought Qualifying Sessions

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Philip Ellis and Robby Foley have claimed pole positions for this weekend’s pair of GT World Challenge America powered by AWS races at Circuit of The Americas following hard-fought qualifying runs Saturday morning.

Ellis stormed to a 2:03.045 lap time in the Pro-Am class No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo in Q1 to outpace the competition by nearly a half-second.

Michai Stephens qualified second overall and first in the Pro class in the repaired No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG, ahead of Kenton Koch in the No. 99 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

Bill Auberlen and Alex Sedgwick completed the overall top-five for Random Vandals and RS1, respectively.

AF Corse picked up Am class pole honors for Race 1, with Ozz Negri qualifying 10th overall, while Scott Dollahite gave the Ford Mustang GT3 its first class pole for Race 2 in the No. 6 Dollahite Racing entry.

Q2 saw Foley set a benchmark 2:02.246 lap time in the No. 29 Turner BMW, edging out the No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche of Tom Sargent by a mere 0.008 seconds.

Mikael Grenier qualified third overall and took the Pro class pole in the JMF Mercedes-AMG, followed by the No. 11 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Matt Bell and the No. 8 Flying Lizard Motorsports BMW of Andy Lee, who completed the overall top-five.

Race 1 gets underway this afternoon at 1:05 p.m. CST, with Race 2 on tap for Sunday at 2:15 p.m. CST. Both races will be streamed live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and on Twitch, as well as on MAVTV.

RESULTS: Qualifying 1/Qualifying 2