Baptista earns first PWC pole in GTS class at Utah

Spain's Rodrigo Baptista made an impressive debut at Utah Motorsports Campus Saturday when he drove his No. 3 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR sports car to his first Pirelli World Challenge pole position for Saturday's GTS Round 13 50-minute sprint event in the Security National Mortgage Supercar Grand Prix of Utah.

Baptista, a double race winner this year at Lime Rock Park, hadn't seen the 3.048-mile, 14-turn road circuit until Thursday testing session but quickly adapted to the high-speed road course with a pole time of one minute, 58.492 seconds for and average speed of 92.60 miles per hour in the 17-car field.

Local star Drew Staveley of Salt Lake City posted the second quickest GTS class time Saturday Friday at Utah in the No. 12 Ian Lacy Racing Ginetta G55 with a very close 1:58.510 (92.58 mph) followed by Martin Barkey at 1:58.572 (92.45 mph) in fourth in the No. 80 Mantella Autosports KTM X-Bow GT4.

Rounding out the top five in GTS qualifying was 17-year-old Nate Stacy in the No. 14 Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR at 1:59.022 (92.19 mph) and PWC veteran Jeff Courtney with a 1:59.121 (92.11 mph) in the No. 99 RecStuff.com/KENDA Maserati GT4.

"It was really nice," said Baptista. "We are working on the car, and it's much better than yesterday. I'm happy because this is my first pole in the United States, and my first pole with Flying Lizard. We'll see how the race goes. I'll push hard from the start and hope to create a gap on the field."

The top GTS Am class qualifier Saturday was Keith Jensen, who drove his No. 47 NOLAsport Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR machine to a time of 1:59.302 (91.97 mph) followed by GTS Am point leader George Kurtz at 1:59.787 (91.60 mph) in the No. 04 CrowdStrike/GMG McLaren 570S and Jason Bell at 1.59.820 (91.57 mph) in the No. 2 Racer's Edge SIN CAR 1 GT4.