Doran Ford GT Wins Petit Le Mans GT2 Pole

David Murray drove the Doran Ford GT MK 7 to its first-ever pole position for the 12th annual Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
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Doran Ford GT Wins Petit Le Mans GT2 Pole
David Murray qualified fastest in the #40 GT2 Robertson Racing Ford GT Mk7 for Petit Le Mans, the first pole for the team. (Darrell Ingham/Getty Images)
9/25/2009
Updated:
9/25/2009

<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/doran91157533_medium.jpg"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/doran91157533_medium.jpg" alt="David Murray qualified fastest in the #40 GT2 Robertson Racing Ford GT Mk7 for Petit Le Mans, the first pole for the team. (Darrell Ingham/Getty Images)" title="David Murray qualified fastest in the #40 GT2 Robertson Racing Ford GT Mk7 for Petit Le Mans, the first pole for the team. (Darrell Ingham/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-92893"/></a>
David Murray qualified fastest in the #40 GT2 Robertson Racing Ford GT Mk7 for Petit Le Mans, the first pole for the team. (Darrell Ingham/Getty Images)
David Murray drove the Doran Ford GT MK 7 to its first-ever pole position for the 12th annual Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta on September 26. The Doran Ford beat the class favorite BMWs, Porsches, and Corvettes by .058 seconds.

Murray said he felt, “… pretty emotional, really. The whole team is emotional. We had the car delivered to us 10 days before this race. We worked so hard to set up the car.”

<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/BMW91153838_medium.jpg"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/BMW91153838_medium.jpg" alt="The #90 BMW Rahal Letterman BMW E92 M3 driven by Joey Hand, Bill Auberlen and Andy Priaulx qualified fifth in GT2. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)" title="The #90 BMW Rahal Letterman BMW E92 M3 driven by Joey Hand, Bill Auberlen and Andy Priaulx qualified fifth in GT2. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-92894"/></a>
The #90 BMW Rahal Letterman BMW E92 M3 driven by Joey Hand, Bill Auberlen and Andy Priaulx qualified fifth in GT2. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
“I’ve been doing ALMS since day one,” Murray continued, “and this has to be the most competitive field I’ve ever been in. The factories are really stepping up their games and last night there were something like six cars within a tenth of a second.

“That’s the great thing about this series, it’s how the team performs on the track. They [the big teams] might have the technologies and the funding but it shows that it is so close, that if you work hard and you do you work you can compete with these teams on the same level.”

The Doran Ford has never shown winning speed; it is usually a steady mid-pack performer. But Road Atlanta is driver David Murray’s home track, and the team obviously found something which gave them an edge.

<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/FLIZARD91153994_medium.jpg"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/FLIZARD91153994_medium.jpg" alt="The #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by J&#246rg Bergmeister, Patrick Long and Marc Lieb will be hoping to clinch the GT2 championship with a good result at Petit Le Mans. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)" title="The #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by J&#246rg Bergmeister, Patrick Long and Marc Lieb will be hoping to clinch the GT2 championship with a good result at Petit Le Mans. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-92895"/></a>
The #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by Jörg Bergmeister, Patrick Long and Marc Lieb will be hoping to clinch the GT2 championship with a good result at Petit Le Mans. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
The Riley Corvette of Lou Gigliotti, with Tom Sutherland at the wheel, qualified second, in its first race back since bursting into flames in the final race of last season. The rebuilt car’s debut performance was phenomenal, beating the factory-supported Corvettes, as well as the series-leading Flying Lizard Porsches and the very fast BMWs.

The BMWs qualified fourth and fifth, behind the #4 Corvette Racing CR6. Patrick Long put the class-leading #45 Flying Lizard Porsche into sixth.

Please click here for LMP1 and LMP2 results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GT2 Qualifying Results 12th Annual Petit Le Mans

Pos

  

Num

CL

Car

Driver

Best Lap
Lap Time

Behind
Leader

Behind
Position

1

P

40

GT2

Doran Ford GT MK 7 

David Murry

1:20.819

---

---

2

P

28

GT2

Chevrolet Riley Corvette C6 

Tom Sutherland

1:20.877

-0.058

-0.058

3

P

4

GT2

Corvette C6.R 

Olivier Beretta

1:20.912

-0.093

-0.035

4

P

92

GT2

BMW E92 M3 

Dirk Mueller

1:20.981

-0.162

-0.069

5

  

90

GT2

BMW E92 M3 

Joey Hand

1:21.219

-0.400

-0.238

6

P

45

GT2

Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 

Patrick Long

1:21.299

-0.480

-0.080

7

P

3

GT2

Corvette C6.R 

Johnny O'Connell

1:21.491

-0.672

-0.192

8

P

87

GT2

Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 

Wolf Henzler

1:21.760

-0.941

-0.269

9

  

21

GT2

Panoz Esperante GTLM Ford 

Dominik Farnbacher

1:21.839

-1.020

-0.079

10

P

62

GT2

Ferrari F430 GT 

Jaime Melo

1:22.718

-1.899

-0.879

11

P

17

GT2

Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 

Bryan Sellers

1:23.081

-2.262

-0.363

12

P

11

GT2

Dodge Viper Comp Coupe 

Chris Hall

1:23.121

-2.302

-0.040

13

  

44

GT2

Porsche 911 GT3 RSR 

Seth Neiman

1:25.601

-4.782

-2.480