Tom Blomqvist has picked up his first Motul Pole Award in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Blomqvist turned a lap of 1 minute, 29.580 seconds (136.637 mph), a track record for the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class, to claim pole position for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. He’ll lead the field around the 11-turn, 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International circuit when the green flag waves Sunday morning.
“We put a big focus on qualifying this weekend,” said Blomqvist, who will co-drive the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-05 with Oliver Jarvis. “The championship is tight and every point counts.”
The pole let Blomqvist and Jarvis expand their lead in the WeatherTech Championship driver standings to 13 points over Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque, who qualified second in the #10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 at 1:29.744.
“It’s a six-hour race, so a lot can happen,” Blomqvist said. “But it definitely makes your life a lot easier to start at the front. That was definitely a focus of ours this weekend.”
LMP2
Fresh from his win in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ben Keating kept the momentum going Saturday by winning the top starting spot in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class by the smallest possible margin.
Keating, who won the GTE Am class at Le Mans on June 12, was clocked at 1:33.930 (130.309 mph) Saturday in the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 he shares with Mikkel Jensen and Scott Huffaker.
Keating won the Motul Pole Award by just 0.001 seconds over the team’s #11 ORECA driven by Steven Thomas. Keating’s lap was more than a second faster than his qualifying lap at Watkins Glen in 2021.
“That’s far and away the fastest lap I’ve ever done around Watkins Glen,” Keating said. “It’s a track that feels so good to do a really quick lap. … It’s just hard to imagine.”
LMP3
Nico Varrone made good use of his first visit to Watkins Glen.
Before Thursday, the Argentinian hadn’t seen WGI or worked with FastMD Racing. Two days later, he claimed the Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) pole with a lap of 1:40.028 (122.365 mph) in the #40 Duqueine D08 he co-drives with Max Hanratty and James Vance.
“It was amazing,” Varrone said. “I’m really happy. I’m really happy to be racing in America. It’s my first time and I’m enjoying it a lot. Everyone is amazing, the fans are amazing. It’s really cool. It’s not finished, the job. We have a long race tomorrow.”
GTD PRO
Connor De Phillippi claiming the Motul Pole Award for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. De Phillippi’s lap of the 3.4-mile, 22-turn Watkins Glen International road course was timed at 1 minute, 44.755 seconds (116.844 mph), an effort that edged the Ross Gunn in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 by 0.048 seconds.
The #25 BMW started 12th in class at the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona, in the first race for the brand-new M4 GT3 model, then qualified eighth for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts. A sixth-place start and finish at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in April represented season bests, until De Phillippi and co-driver John Edwards started fourth and claimed their first podium visit of the campaign with a third-place finish at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in May.
Saturday’s pole was De Phillippi’s second in IMSA competition and first since Sebring in 2018.
“I think we’re competitive,” said De Phillippi, a 29-year-old California native. “We’re above average in all areas. We’re not the quickest car on the straight and we’re not the best car around the corners, but we do have a car that does everything reasonably well. Hopefully, that will play into our hands for the race.
“Those were the hottest conditions of the weekend for us, but the lap was good,” he continued. “I didn’t have a ton of laps coming into it, so I was kind of driving by feel, but the car was really good. We made a good step from (practice) this morning, and I think we have a good race car as well.”
Davide Rigon qualified third in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 (1:45.169) and was the only driver to improve his time late in the 15-minute qualifying session as the track temperature rose to over 125 degrees. Ben Barnicoat in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 will line up fourth (1:45.215).
De Phillippi said qualifying is especially important at Watkins Glen because passing tends to be extremely difficult in the race.
“This track typically is hard to race on if you don’t have top speed, so starting up front was important for us,” he said. “If we get stuck behind cars that have high top speed, it’s going to be a tough race.
“Excited to start P1 because it’s going to make our job a little easier.”
GTD
Stevan McAleer leads the driver points in GT Daytona (GTD) and added another accomplishment on Saturday: his first Motul Pole Award. The Scotsman guided the #32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 to the class pole with a lap of 1:45.077 (116.486 mph).
McAleer’s work was particularly impressive considering his lap time trailed only the top two GTD PRO qualifiers among all the GT3-spec cars. He was second fastest in GTD with about six minutes remaining in qualifying and turned in the best-in-class lap immediately thereafter.
“I was feeling pretty good, they said I was P2, I was four-tenths off the pole and that lap wasn’t super tidy,’’ McAleer said. “The next lap was a little better.
“But the field is so strong in GTD, you can’t put a lap in and think you’ve got an easy pole position. This is the first of the year for us. The lap I did was certainly on the limit and we’ll see if we can turn that into a race win tomorrow.”
Richard Heistand was the next quickest GTD car, the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 0.340 seconds off McAleer’s lap. Robby Foley qualified third in the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, just 0.009 seconds behind Heistand.
Foley and co-driver Bill Auberlen sit third in the GTD standings, 134 points behind McAleer and the #32 Mercedes. Michael Dinan is the third driver in the #96, which won the six-hour race last year with Foley, Auberlen and Aidan Read at the wheel.
Jan Heylen, Ryan Hardwick and the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R are second in GTD points. Endurance driver Zacharie Robichon qualified the car seventh on Saturday (1:45.762). Heylen and Hardwick are second in the GTD standings, 45 points behind McAleer.
“Track position is really important,” McAleer said, “because if you come up against a guy that is remotely as fast as you, it’s really hard to pass without having contact. And then add in all the prototypes that are 10 seconds quicker than us, it’s going to be an exciting race. Certainly, good to start out front and hopefully we can keep it there.
