Jarvis takes Rolex 24 pole for Mazda; Alonso to start 6th

Oliver Jarvis led Mazda to pole position for the Rolex 24 at Daytona on Thursday with a new track record at Daytona International Speedway.

Jarvis managed to turn in a fastest lap of 1m33.685s to edge out Penske-Acura's Ricky Taylor by less than two-tenths of a second as the Cadillacs struggled to get in the mix for pole position.

Mazda Team Joest was poised to take a front-row lock-out in the DPi class with five minutes remaining in the session, only for both Penske-entered cars to rise into second and third with their final flying laps.

Felipe Nasr finished as the leading Cadillac DPi runner in fifth, three-quarters of a second back for Action Express Racing. The team's sister #5 car failed to set a competitive time in qualifying after a fire on his brakes mid-session.

Fernando Alonso will start his second Rolex 24 from P6 after teammate Jordan Taylor qualified the #10 Cadillac for Wayne Taylor Racing. Taylor will take the opening stint of the race, having qualified the car.

LMP2 class pole went to DragonSpeed after James Allen finished the session P10 overall. He will lead the four-car class away on Saturday.

2015 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Nick Tandy headed a tight-knit GTLM field for Porsche in the #911 Porsche 911 RSR entry, pulling out a half-second gap with five minutes remaining in the session to sit on provisional pole. While Jan Magnussen was able to lap three-tenths off in the #3 Corvette C7.R, he was powerless to stop Tandy from grabbing top spot in class and, with a sixth Rolex 24 pole in GTLM, a new class record.

Ryan Briscoe took third in class in the #67 Ford GT ahead of Davide Rigon in the #62 Ferrari 488 GTE to make it four manufacturers in the top four in class. Earl Bamber finished P5 in class, half a second down on his teammate, ahead of Ford's Joey Hand and the BMW pair of John Edwards and Connor de Phillippi. Oliver Gavin propped up the GTLM field in ninth, nine-tenths of a second off pole.

In GTD, Marcos Gomes led Via Italia Racing to class pole position with a best lap time of 1m45.257s in the #13 Ferrari 488 GT3. Gomes managed to edge out Riley Motorsports' Ben Keating by just six-hundredths of a second in the #33 Mercedes AMG GT3, while Trent Hindman took P3 in class for Meyer Shank Racing.

The all-female Heinricher Racing entry was piloted by Ana Beatriz through the 15-minute qualifying session, and will start the race from P9 in class.