In a race where Chevrolet’s “Bowtie” looms large atop GM’s Renaissance Center situated in the middle of the downtown street circuit, crosstown rivals Ford’s “Blue Oval” have the best Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) starting positions for Saturday’s Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic. The pair of Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3s swept the front row in qualifying for the fourth round of the 2025 GTD PRO season in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the only 100-minute street course sprint race for the class.
Seb Priaulx fired his No. 64 Ford Mustang GT3 around Detroit’s tricky but short 1.654-mile street course with a best time of 1 minute, 10.922 seconds (83.500 mph). Priaulx led teammate Christopher Mies by 0.329 of a second as times began to tumble in the 15-minute qualifying session, with most of the 10-car field steadily improving every lap.
However, the gains came to an end for most following an incident for the No. 81 car that lost control exiting Turn 3, hitting the Turn 4 concrete barrier. IMSA officials red-flagged the session with less than one minute remaining of the 10-minute guaranteed green flag time, bringing the field to the pits before an ultimate restart for a singular lap to fulfill that time. With no one able to improve, the grid was essentially set by what occurred before the red flag.
Pole and a front-row lockout for Ford – their second of the season after also doing so at the Rolex 24 At Daytona in January, also with the No. 64 car on pole – was particularly important to Priaulx and the Dearborn-based manufacturer. Priaulx will share his car with Mike Rockenfeller.
“For sure, you know Flat Rock (Michigan, where the Mustang assembly plant is located) is just down the road so it feels like I’m on my home soil here,” said Priaulx, who won his second career WeatherTech Championship pole (2024 Rolex 24, also in GTD PRO) and was part of the winning GTD PRO entry in Detroit last year (aboard the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R).
“It’s amazing. I’m really happy, the team gave me a great car today. It’s a great start to hopefully a great weekend. I know around here, a street track, you have to be aware that it’s going to go red at some point. I was really pushing hard. I knew I had to get past the Ferrari. That lap, I felt like I had to get it in.
“I mean ‘round here, we have a big car so hopefully we can keep our doors wide open. I felt like our race pace was really strong, so it’s just head down and look forward and we’re in the best space to win. We just need to get the flag now.”
Mies and co-driver Frederic Vervisch will roll off second in the No. 65 Mustang. Entering the weekend, the No. 65 pair sat fourth in the GTD PRO championship standings (107 points behind leading entry) and the No. 64 duo were seventh (156 points back).
The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 qualified third, but will be moved to the rear of the field following post-qualifying technical inspection which found the car to have ground clearance less than the minimum allowed. That brings the pair of Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVOs – the No. 1 of Neil Verhagen qualifying ahead of the No. 48 of Dan Harper – up to third and fourth, with the best of the Corvettes, Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R, in fifth.
The championship-leading No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, qualified by Klaus Bachler, will start seventh – one spot ahead of their closest championship rivals, the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Antonio Garcia, in eighth. The AO Porsche, the defending Detroit winners and winners of three straight WeatherTech Championship races across both GT classes, leads the No. 3 Corvette by 70 points entering the weekend.
Teams have a 20-minute final practice session at 10:35 a.m. ET Saturday before flag-to-flag coverage of the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic begins at 3:30 p.m. on Peacock (internationally via IMSA.TV and IMSA Official YouTube channel).
Teams have a 20-minute Practice 3 at 10:35 a.m. ET Saturday before flag-to-flag coverage of the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic begins at 3:30 p.m. on Peacock (internationally via IMSA.TV and IMSA Official YouTube channel).
IMSA Wire Service PR
