The Brazilian went out in the middle of the session and dropped a staggering lap of 1m32.656s around the 3.56-mile road course to seize the top spot in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R.
The lap bested last year’s mark of 1m34.031s set by Tom Blomqvist, who is now Derani’s team-mate. Derani's time also eclipsed the previous fastest-ever prototype lap set by Oliver Jarvis in a Mazda DPi at 1m33.685s to claim pole in 2019.
Sebastien Bourdais, Derani’s Cadillac Racing counterpart representing Chip Ganassi Racing, was the closest challenger to Derani, falling only 0.071s behind to end up second.
The No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 had an adventurous run, with Felipe Nasr ending up third at 0.220s off the record time but not before spinning off in Turn 5. The top three were the only ones to go sub-1m33s laps.
Connor De Phillippi flexed the muscle of the BMW M Hybrid V8, putting it fourth at only 0.366s behind. In fifth was the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 driven by Louis Deletraz, trailing 0.444s off pole.
Proton Competition was the only GTP team to not put down a qualifying lap, which was due to Neel Jani crashing in the warm-up GTP session prior. The Porsche 963 was coming up on traffic entering Turn 5 while on cold tires for an out-lap. Jani had only run two laps prior to the shunt.