Jonathan Bomarito and Mike Conway were the headline-makers during qualifying at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (CTMP) for Sunday’s race, with both taking class-pole for the first time; the English driver achieving the feat on his ALMS debut.
Klaus Graf took an expected overall pole for Muscle Milk Racing, taking the #6 HPD ARX-03a round the 2.459 mile circuit in a time of 1:05.871, while Conway (1:08.785) and team-mate Marino Franchitti (1:09.031) were second and third fastest overall in the two P2 class Level 5 HPDs.
“I had a really good run,” said Graf. “The car worked very well. The Muscle Milk crew did a good job in practice as we made a lot of changes. Shortly before the end of the second practice session I wasn’t too happy but we made another adjustment and we hit the sweet spot with our Muscle Milk car and it was really good in qualifying. The track changes they made here improved some areas in terms of grip as well so it was a good day.”
“I felt at home fairly quickly and it was just a case of running the track and finding the limits there,” said Conway. “I feel very welcome within the Level 5 team and they’ve given me everything they could, from data and videos and things like that, to get up to speed. Tomorrow, we’ve just got to deal with what comes our way. I’ll be starting the #552 car and it should be fun taking the green flag. We’ll see how it goes.”
Canadian racer Tony Burgess was fourth fastest, second in P1, in the #16 Dyson Racing Lola B12/60 he shares with Chris McMurry; “Given where Chris and I are at in our cycle of development with the car, we got a good amount out of it in qualifying,” he said. “This is my first time driving a car with the wide front tires and you can feel the difference. You pay a price in terms of feel from initial turn in to the apex, but overall, you are not worried about the front end giving up, and under braking it is much better.”
There was an odd situation in PC, with Colin Braun’s 1:10.303 being the fastest time of the session in the #05 CORE autosport ORECA FLM09, but with pole going to Mike Guasch in the #52 Molecule car. Ironically, it was a crash for Guasch (whose best time was a 1:12.715) which led to the session being red-flagged and therefore not meeting the ten-minute minimum as stipulated in the rules; Guasch starting from P1 as a result of being the current points-leader.
“It’s frustrating,” said Braun. “I think this team deserved the pole and everybody knows that. When the green flag drops tomorrow, everyone forgets about what happened today, so it’s about looking forward.
“We had a really fast car. We made a couple changes after the last practice that were definitely geared toward our race set-up and we wanted to see where we’d be for race pace while sacrificing a little qualifying speed, so I’m surprised we were that much faster than everyone else in qualifying. It’s a testament to the hard work that Travis Low (race engineer), Jon Bennett and the CORE autosport guys did setting this car up.”
The #9 RSR Racing ORECA of Bruno Junqueira and Duncan Ende starts third.
Bomarito’s moment of glory came in the #93 SRT Viper GTS-R, when he outqualified Jan Magnussen’s #3 Corvette C6 ZR1 by 0.139s to take GT pole; the Danish driver crashing heavily in his efforts to beat the Viper’s time.
“I don’t know that I took more than one or two breaths that whole lap,” said Bomarito. “From Turn 2 to Turn 3 to Turn 4, it has awesome flow. It’s just a really, really knife-edge of a track. You have to be spot on, really work on balancing the car and just trusting the grip levels because it’s really, really fast.”
“One of the things I love about this place is that there is a real consequence to making mistakes or pushing too hard,” said Magnussen.
“We were just a tenth back from pole and this was an attempt to get it. I still think (the pole time) was in the car but I just bounced in the middle of Turn 3 over a small bump and that put me a little bit off line at the exit. A wheel off into the grass and that was it – I was off into the tire wall. I feel sorry for the team. For sure you try to avoid these things but sometimes they happen. When you hit the tire wall at an angle, it tends to rip things off the car. It will be a bit of work for the guys but the car was awesome in qualifying and I believe the pole time was in it. That’s why I went for it. The car will be perfect for the race.”
The good news for SRT continued with the #91 Viper taking third spot on the grid in the hands of Marc Goossens, while the #56 Joey Hand/Dirk Müller BMW Z4 GTE starts fourth.
In GTC, Jeroen Bleekemolen returned in style from his late – and entirely blame-free – exit from the Lime Rock race, with a pole-setting 1:21.310 in the #22 AJR Porsche 911 GT3 Cup.
“It was a really good qualifying run,” said the Dutchman. “It is a new car since Lime Rock. The guys did a great job since the last race to completely rebuild the car and it has been fast all week. The car has been trouble free and fast. We have been the fastest in the practice sessions and now on pole. Cooper is doing some fast laps, so I think we are the favorite for tomorrow. I think it is going to be a great race to the very end.”
Sean Edwards took P2 in class in the #30 MOMO Porsche, while Spencer Pumpelly was third for Flying Lizard in the #45.
The race is due to start at noon, local time.
