By alley - Jul 1, 2017, 1:00 PM ET

Derani's lap record earns Glen IMSA pole

Tequila Patron ESM earned the first pole position for its Ligier-based Nissan Onroak DPi as Brazil's Pipo Derani set a new Prototype record on Saturday at Watkins Glen with a lap of 1m34.405s. Olivier Pla also dipped below the previous lap record (a 1m35.207s from 2016) in the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports WEC P2-spec Ligier JS P217-Gibson.

"To be on pole just shows how much effort the team has been putting in the last months," said Derani, who took the first non-Cadillac pole for DPi cars this season. "It's really nice to start the weekend with a pole position but there's still a six-hour race to go. It was a blast today."

Pla kept chipping away at Derani's time but had to settle for second (+0.162s) as two Ligiers locked out the front row.

"It's a great result for Ligier," the Frenchman said of the Le Mans-based manufacturer. "I wanted pole so bad. The gap is really close. Let's see what happens in the race; I think we should be really strong."

Third went to Christian Fittipaldi's No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R (+0.901s), which led Ricky Taylor's unbeaten No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac (+1.091s) and Johannes van Overbeek in the sister No. 22 Nissan in fifth (+1.232s). The pair of Mazda RT24-P DPis were slowest in Prototype, approximately 2.5 seconds off of Derani's Nissan.

Performance Tech Racing took another easy pole in the three-car class with James French behind the wheel. French's 1m40.049s in the No. 38 PC easily cleared Don Yount in the No. 20 BAR1 Motorsports PC (+2.076s).

"It's never going to get old," French said. "The car was on rails. The team did an amazing job."

With just over one minute left in qualifying, Ford Chip Ganassi Racing's Richard Westbrook was ready to celebrate pole position in GT Le Mans until BMW Team RLL's Martyn Tomczyk eclipsed his fast time by three thousandths of a second. That's 0.003 seconds. Just as Tomczyk was celebrating inside the cockpit of his BMW M6, his teammate Andreas Sims captured the top spot by 0.068 seconds. There it was, a BMW 1-2 as the clock wound down to zero. And then Westbrook's teammate Joey Hand crossed the line under the checkered flag to spoil the BMW party by a whopping 0.306 seconds to steal an emphatic pole with the No. 66 Ford GT.

"All I can say is 'America!'" said California's Hand. "Great to do this on 4th of July weekend, Independence Day. Just happy to be on this program and today was a good day. It's always fun to start at the front."

Hand's lap of 1m42.507s was followed by Sims and Tomczyk in the two BMWs and Westbrook who held on for fourth.

"That was pretty much it," Sims said. "The last lap was on the edge. Good job by Joey."

GT Daytona featured a strong battle for lap time supremacy between IMSA's two newest manufacturers. Factory teams from Acura and Lexus went hard for pole and in the end, Andy Lally moved the No. 93 Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 on top with a lap of 1m46.051s.

"It's all a testament to these guys at MSR, Acura and HPD," the New York native (pictured) said. "I really appreciate that. This is a pretty neat deal, at my home track. When you put one of those crazy laps together you're breathing hard. That feels good. It's cool to stick it on the pole."

Jack Hawksworth was looking like a pole contender until he spun his No. 15 Lexus RC F GT3 on his fastest lap in Turn 9 where a narrow band of leftover rain was seen. Moments later, his teammate Sage Karam spun in the same spot, but clouted the wall with the nose of his No. 14 Lexus (pictured, below, IMSA TV image), which brought out the red flag. Prior to the stoppage, Lawson Aschenbach managed to leap in front of the Lexus to take second with the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS GT3 (+0.220s). Hawksworth settled for third (+0.673s).