Like kismet, the two Acura ARX-06es will start from the front row tomorrow for tomorrow’s IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Filipe Albuquerque put Wayne Taylor Racing’s #10 Konica Minolta Acura on pole position, while Tom Blomqvist qualified second in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura.
GTP Qualifying had been delayed for over ten minutes while marshalls and rescue crews cleaned up debris from an accident at the end of the preceding GTD qualifying session. The super eight hybrid prototypes took to the track but even to themselves, had some trouble finding an empty space on the course early on.
After eight minutes of Qualifying it became apparent that the Acuras would be able to back up their great form in Practice 1 and 2. Albuquerque took provisional pole, then was surpassed by Blomqvist seconds later.
On their next laps, Albuquerque took back the provisional pole with a lap of 1’10.428. Blomqvist had set a time of 1’10.489 that would have put him a few hundredths away, but the Anglo-Swedish driver had his lap time invalidated for encroaching over the pit exit line to his right.
While Blomqvist’s challenge for his second pole of the season fell away, Albuquerque continued to gain pace. He improved his benchmark time with a 1’10.371 for the best time of the day, and then, with less than two minutes left on the clock, the Portuguese speed merchant put it out of reach with a scorching time of 1’09.909 – enough to put himself and three-time Long Beach winner Ricky Taylor on the pole for tomorrow’s 100-minute sprint race.
Albuquerque said after qualifying: “The last two years we were always suffering here, but statistics in the first two races this year showed we are really competitive. But I must say I was not expecting to be so competitive compared to the competitors – especially the Cadillac. (The Cadillac) has no turbo engine, so putting the power down is a strong point for that car. But obviously they are struggling with something.”
“At the end of the day, it’s about ticking all the boxes on a complex car that everybody is still learning about,” he added. “I think the communication between Honda Performance Development and the teams is going fantastic and smooth. We did the homework, and it’s paying off. I’m super happy about it.”
It’s Albuquerque’s fourth career IMSA pole and his first around the streets of Long Beach. The 35 points for pole position also moves the Wayne Taylor Racing duo back into the lead of the GTP championship table.
Blomqvist and Colin Braun will start second, hoping to dig themselves out of the massive points deficit they face after their post-Daytona penalties.
Best of the rest was Sébastien Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, in third. Bourdais and Renger van der Zande will try and win this race for the second consecutive year.
In fourth was the #25 BMW M Team RLL V8 Hybrid of Nick Yelloly (with Connor de Philippi), and the #24 BMW of Augusto Farfus (with Philipp Eng) was fifth-fastest, showing that the BMWs are indeed beginning to turn the corner after a troubled start to their season!
Sixth-fastest was Nick Tandy in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 (with Mathieu Jaminet), seventh was Alexander Sims in the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac (with Pipo Derani). and the #7 Porsche of Felipe Nasr (with Matt Campbell) was eighth. 1.682 seconds covered the eight GTP cars in qualifying.
The #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Marco Sørensen took the pole position in GTD, with a new course record. He’ll share the outside of the GTD front row with GTD Pro pole winner Jack Hawksworth in the #14 VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3.
Early on, the 18 GTD cars were trying to find a comfortable position on the track by themselves. In that scramble to find track position on the outlap, the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Madison Snow clipped the #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Brendan Iribe, and sent Iribe spinning around at turn five.
Iribe would continue after the contact with Snow, but later, he spun on his own at the same corner. In his efforts to try and reverse away from the concrete barrier, he had close calls with the #92 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R (Jeroen Bleekemolen) and the #3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD (Antonio Garcia). Snow also had a textbook lockup into turn one after he got on the brakes too late off of East Shoreline Boulevard.
Ross Gunn in the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin was the first to leap to the provisional pole in GTD Pro before Hawksworth jumped ahead with a 1’18.490. On their next flying laps, Gunn responded with a 1’18.113, then Hawksworth followed through with a time of 1’17.885, just nine milliseconds off his top time from Practice 2.
Ahead of Iribe’s stranded McLaren, Sørensen leapt to the top of the board with a 1’17.811, to set an outright GTD course record. Hawksworth improved to a 1’17.817, six milliseconds short of the outright GTD pole position.
With 90 seconds left, Ashton Harrison in the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 was pushing, but then clipped the inside wall at the apex of turn eight and that slight contact sent her into the left-side barrier along Seaside Way. Just a few seconds later, PJ Hyett in the #80 AO Racing Porsche made the same error but at a much higher speed – Hyett caught enough of the inside wall and was spit into the concrete barriers – hard enough to move them on impact.
Pinned against the wall, Harrison’s car caught fire. But she was able to escape unhurt through the passenger-side door. Hyett, too, was able to climb out through his passenger door without any serious injuries.
AO Racing have already declared that their car cannot be repaired in time to start tomorrow’s race, a bitter shame for Hyett, and for Seb Priaulx, who was quick throughout the day’s practice sessions. Meanwhile, Racers Edge Motorsports must scramble to get their #93 Acura repaired for the race, if possible.
With that, the session finished with Sørensen and Hawksworth taking their respective pole positions. It’s the first pole of the season for both the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin of Sørensen and Roman de Angelis, and the #14 VasserSullivan Lexus of Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat.
GTD pole winner – and Long Beach newcomer – Sørensen commented: “To be honest, with it being the first time for me here in Long Beach, I’m a bit surprised we pulled this off. I really enjoy street circuits. They get adrenaline going again in the system and it’s so good to get the pole.”
“Really happy with that,” said Hawksworth, the GTD Pro pole winner. “The boys have done a mega job the last couple of days. We kind of struggled at this track in the past but the car’s been on rails ever since we got here.”
Gunn and Alex Riberas’ #23 Aston Martin finished with the second-fastest time in GTD Pro, followed by the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche of Patrick Pilet (with Klaus Bachler) in third, and the #3 Corvette of Garcia and Jordan Taylor in fourth.
In GTD, the second-fastest ‘non-pro’ car was the #12 VasserSullvan Lexus of Frankie Montecalvo, while Snow recovered from his earlier incidents to go third-quickest in class. Mike Skeen was fourth-fastest in the #32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, followed by the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 of Misha Goikhberg, and the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes of Russell Ward.
The third round of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship is scheduled to begin at 2:05 PM PDT (local time) following the conclusion of IndyCar Series qualifying that same afternoon.
Images Courtesy of IMSA
