Aston Martin Racing’s works team has qualified in third place in the GTLM class for the Daytona 24 Hours and its North American partner team TRG-AMR has taken pole position in the GTD class.

In the first qualifying session of the day, the 18 GTD cars, similar in specification to the GT3 cars used in rest of the world, headed out onto the 5.73km-long Daytona International Speedway. James Davison (AU) was the nominated qualifying driver in the #007 Vantage GTD and the 28-year old didn’t disappoint, setting the fastest lap of the 20-minute session to take his fifth consecutive United Sports Car Championship pole position.

“I was surprised to have been able to pull off the pole,” commented Davison. “But, as a team, we got on top of the car to find the pace and I was able to put together a really good lap. We’re going for the Championship this year without question and this is a great way to start off the season.”

Moments later it was the turn of the top GT class, GTLM, and the V8 Vantage GTE driven by Aston Martin Racing works driver Pedro Lamy (PT) joined the pack of Ferraris, Corvettes, Porsches and BMWs to battle it out for the fastest lap. In the final seconds of the session, the Portuguese GT ace put in his fastest lap, enough to place the car in third place on the grid for Saturday’s race.

“We can be happy with third place,” commented Lamy. “It’s enough to hopefully keep us out of any trouble at the start of the race and shows that we have good pace. It’s a long race and a lot can happen but we have a good driver line-up and the car feels good. We’re all looking forward to the race on Saturday.”

The TRG-AMR #009 Vantage GTD didn’t make it out into qualifying due to damage sustained in free practice two, so will start the race from the back of the grid.

Daytona 24 Hours starts at 1410hrs local time on Saturday 24 January.