Source: Wayne Taylor Racing

The No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R will start Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic from the inside of the fourth row after IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying Friday evening on the Streets of Belle Isle in downtown Detroit.

The No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R will start Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic from the inside of the fourth row after IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying Friday evening on the Streets of Belle Isle in downtown Detroit.

Renger van der Zande, who with co-driver Jordan Taylor is looking to score the team’s fifth Detroit victory in the last six years this weekend, clocked a fast lap of 1 minute, 22.273 seconds at 102.828 mph during a slightly shortened qualifying session around the 2.36-mile, 13-turn temporary street circuit due to a red-flag stoppage. It was good for seventh among the 26 car-and-driver combinations that will take the green flag for Saturday’s one-hour, 40 minute sprint race.

“It’s been a rough day – we’ve been chasing the setup a little bit over the bumps here but, for qualifying we made a very good step forward,” said van der Zande, the Dutch driving veteran who scored back-to-back LMPC-class wins here with the Starworks Motorsport team in 2015 and 2016. “The only issue was the red flag, which made it all come down to a two-lap shootout at the end, which was really cool in one way but, at the same time, it would have been good to get the whole session in. I gave it my all and got a pretty good lap. It was nowhere near the pole but at least we’re a little bit ahead of where we were in practice. Then, into turn 11, I was fully sideways and almost spun off on an even quicker lap, but those are the risks you have to take, sometimes. I went over a bump, got a little wide, kept the throttle down to see if we could make it, but I had to lift, anyway, and lost a few tenths there. Altogether, it wasn’t the greatest, but in the race, anything can happen, for sure. We should be able to make another few steps forward because we’ve at least found the right direction.”