A Mazda has smashed the course record at the famous Daytona circuit in Florida.
Driven by Olly Jarvis, the No. 77 Mazda RT24-P flew around the Daytona International Speedway road course faster than any other car in history in Thursday’s qualifying for the Rolex 24.
Jarvis not only captured the overall pole position but broke the 26-year-old course record on the 5.7km road course.
On his fourth flying lap, Jarvis ran a time of 1:33.685 which officially reset the longstanding record lap of 1:33.875, and the time held to the end of the session.
The Mazda RT24-P uses the Riley Mk. 30 chassis, developed by Riley Technologies in conjunction with Multimatic.
Riley Technologies is a prominent chassis design and development company with 99 race wins and nine Prototype season championships in North American endurance racing since 2004.
Canadian-based Multimatic has worked with Mazda since 2014 in the Prototype category, and has developed and built some of the world’s premier on-road supercars and successful sports cars for the race track.
The Mazda RT24-P is powered by a 2.0-litre turbocharged four cylinder engine that develops a staggering 450kW of power at 8500 revs.
This is Mazda’s first overall pole position in its history at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and is the first pole position in IMSA for Jarvis and the Mazda RT24-P.
Mazda has captured 22 class victories at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, beginning 40 years ago with a 1-2 finish for the Mazda RX-7 in the GTU class.
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