IMSA: Taylor captures COTA pole

The battle for pole at Circuit of The Americas went down between Wayne Taylor Racing and Mazda Racing and, once the 15-minute sprint was over, Ricky Taylor moved his No. 10 Corvette DP ahead by the smallest of margins.

Taylor's first pole of the year (1m58.712s) came beneath blue skies and amid high heat, and with Mazda's Tristan Nunez falling just short of the brand's third consecutive pole (-0.003), and more decisively ahead of the second Mazda Prototype (-0.408), the former Grand-Am Daytona Prototype champion was relieved to earn pole while denying the rapid P2-based competition.

"I wish we could have had more this year," he said. "I'm sick of those Mazdas on pole so it's nice to get one for the Corvette. Hopefully we can [win] tomorrow."

Ryan Briscoe (above, LAT photo) cranked out an amazing lap in his No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT (2m04.188s) to put more than a half-second between himself and the No. 62 Risi Competition Ferrari 488 GTE (-0.506s) and even more over Porsche North America's Patrick Pilet in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR (-0.686s). Best from the championship-leading Corvette team went to Oliver Gavin in the No. 4 C7.R in sixth (-1.002s).

"It's what I was hoping for," Briscoe said. "It was pretty much what I was expecting, but it was a little slower than practice. We were looking at the conditions. The Continental Tire guys ran out there right before us, so we knew it was going to be a little slippery out there, so it was about putting the lap together. We've been making a lot of setup changes and making a lot of gains, and a lot of that's due to our testing here a couple weeks ago."

Robert Alon rocked the PC class with another pole for PR1/Mathiasen Racing. The Californian team and driver flexed their muscles in the spec class with a lap time (2m01.847s) that was out of reach by Starworks Motorsport's Jose Gutierrez (-0.424) in the No. 7 entry and teammate Alex Popow (-0.427) in the No. 8. He and teammate Tom Kimber-Smith will look to extend their championship lead on Saturday in IMSA's penultimate round for 2016.

"It was pretty good lap," Alon said. "We just want to keep it clean and give it to Tom in good shape."

Alex Riberas scored the fourth pole of the season for the Alex Job Racing/Team Seattle Porsche 911 GT3 R team. The Spaniard's lap (2m08.568s) was well clear of the No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS driven by Lawson Aschenbach (-0.378s) and the Porsche 911 GT3 R piloted by Park Place Motorsports team owner Patrick Lindsey (-0.441s).

"It's the first time we've gone to a track I'm used to and we came here with a big hope of doing something good," he said. "Right now, in terms of [race] pace, I don't know where we are. I wouldn't say we are the quickest."

Ambient temperatures over 90 degrees are expected for the 2h40m race and. according to Briscoe, additional driver changes could be on order to ensure heat exhaustion does not set in.

"Tomorrow, we have to run our race," he said. "We've got a lot of cars there and it's an aggressive racing class. This track lends itself to a lot of passing, and a lot of hard racing. Could be one or two driver changes because it's going to be so hot and humid. We'll be learning a lot during the race, that's for sure."

UP NEXT: Morning warm-up, 9 a.m. ET, then IMSA's Lone Star Le Mans race, 12:35 p.m. ET.