Dalziel bags Daytona poleposted in MSPOR27 | 01 | 2012
THREE SCOTS WILL tomorrow start from the front three positions on the grid for America's Blue Riband race, the Daytona 24 Hours in Florida.
While four-time IndyCar champ, Bathgate's Dario Franchitti, will start from third in his Chip Ganassi Racing Riley-BMW, Wishaw's Ryan Dalziel (pictured) qualified on pole position.
The Lanarkshire driver, who won the gruelling event in 2010, is this year partnered in his Starworks Motorsport Riley-Ford by fellow Scot Allan McNish.
The 42-year-old, a double Le Mans 24-Hours winner, watched from the pitwall as Dalziel stormed to pole position with a fastest lap of 1min 41.119secs, an average of 126.74mph round the 3.56-mile track.
“It wasn’t unexpected that we would be good, we just didn’t think we would be on pole," Dalziel, who finished on the podium in last weekend's warm-up race in Abu Dhabi, admitted today.
Peugeot pulls plug on Le Mans 24-Hours
"We missed the first practice session because of an engine, but we were really strong in the second practice.
“I just threw one down for qualifying. I'm absolutely delighted with it and really happy for the team. They've worked very hard for this.
"We came here with a good idea of what to expect, but for everything to come together so perfectly was definitely a surprise: a well-deserved surprise."
And McNish was swift to praise his team-mate's performance.
“Ryan and the team did an incredible job as we were using a brand new car for the first time today,” the Dumfries racer explained.
“It’s a 24 hour race with a huge, quality field. We’ll need to be clean in traffic and make no mistakes, as well as being fast to win this event. But there's not better place to start a race than from pole”.
Double champ Jason Plato leads MG return to BTCC
Dalziel’s achievement – his maiden Grand-Am pole-position – was all the more worthy of merit taking in to account he was driving a brand new Riley-Ford for the first time: the car having only turned a wheel for the first time earlier in the day.
Dalziel and Audi Sport “factory” driver McNish are also partnered by German Lucas Luhr, and Venezuelans Enzo Potolicchio and Alex Popow in the 50th running of the Daytona 24 Hours.
Sandwiched between the two cars driven by the Scots, the SunTrust Corvette of Aussie IndyCar winner Ryan Briscoe came within 0.121s of Dalziel's fastest time and starts from second on the grid.
Scots F1 ace Paul di Resta: Exciting times
Keep up-to-date with all the latest news by following us on twitter.com/scotcars
Jim McGill