The Porsche 963 may have won its first race in Long Beach by matter of good fortune and strategy over sheer speed. But now at Laguna Seca, the two Penske-run Porsches appear to be the quickest cars of the weekend – especially after a front-row lockout for tomorrow’s Motul Course de Monterey, the fourth round of the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.
Only 90 milliseconds stood between them as Matt Campbell took the pole in the #7 Penske Porsche, and the honours of the 963’s first competition pole position.
Campbell had been quickest throughout both Free Practice sessions this weekend and took provisional pole with a 1’14.950. Then, Mathieu Jaminet, the race winner at Long Beach, fired back with a 1’14.864.
However, the flying Australian was right behind him and responded immediately with a time of 1’14.774, good enough for his and Porsche’s first pole in GTP, and his second in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.
“Starting on pole is really really critical. It’s an extremely tough track to pass on and it’s got really high degradation so track position is really key tomorrow,” Campbell commented after his pole run. “Strategy will really come into play. It’s fantastic to be up front.”
“Obviously, our first pole ever for the new Porsche 963. We’ve made some really good improvements. Hopefully can keep the ball rolling on from Long Beach!”
Campbell and Felipe Nasr will line up alongside the number 6 car of Jaminet and Nick Tandy which qualified in second. The 32 points earned move the #6 Porsche crew into the provisional GTP championship lead heading into tomorrow’s two hour, 40 minute sprint race.
Best of the non-Porsches was the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06. Instead of Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun took this time attack and qualified third-fastest, also into the sub-1’15 bracket.
A close fourth was the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R (Pipo Derani/Alexander Sims), to secure a spot on the second row.
The defending Laguna Seca race winners, the #10 Konica Minolta Acura (Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque) qualified fifth-fastest, while the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R (Sébastien Bourdais/Renger van der Zande) overcame its difficult start to the weekend to qualify in sixth.
The two BMW M Team RLL Hybrid V8s will share the front row, the #25 (Connor de Philippi/Nick Yelloly) ahead of the #24 (Philipp Eng/Augusto Farfus).
In its first qualifying run, the #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche (Tijmen van der Helm/Mike Rockenfeller) will start at the rear of the nine-car GTP field. Van der Helm’s best time was 2.2 seconds back of the pole-winning Porsche, but given that the Minnesota-based privateers only ran the car in anger for the first time 24 hours ago, their aim is for a trouble-free race.
In LMP2, a track limits infringement and a last-lap flyer from George Kurtz caused a sudden turn in the battle for the class pole position.
Kurtz and Ben Hanley will lead the eight-car LMP2 field to the green flag in their #04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR Oreca 07, ahead of Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin in the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca.
Keating would have been well on his way to his third consecutive pole position in class. A lap time of 1’18.891 set in the final minute would have put Keating on pole, but he fell afoul of track limits at turn five. The addition of a strip of tarmac on the outside of turn five was done for drainage purposes, but evoked sour reactions from some drivers prior to the start of the weekend.
That reset Keating’s benchmark to a 1’19.323, but at the chequered flag, Kurtz just edged out ahead with a 1’18.891 – giving the long-time SRO GT World Challenge America standout his first IMSA pole position.
TDS Racing’s Orecas locked out row two in the LMP2 grid, the #11 (Steven Thomas/Mikkel Jensen) ahead of the #35 (François Heriau/Giedo van der Garde).
Porsche not only locked out the front row in GTP, but the Stuttgart marque’s good fortunes continued as they won pole in both GTD classes!
The GTD Pro pole position went to last year’s class winners at Pfaff Motorsports. Ten minutes into the 15-minute session, Klaus Bachler set a 1’24.529 to knock the championship-leading #14 VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth off the top spot.
That would hold as the best time, giving the plaid #9 Pfaff Porsche 911 GT3 R – complete with its vintage Motul decals – the pole position. It was Bachler’s first career IMSA pole position.
“I have to say, it’s quite a challenging season for me, because I don’t know a lot of tracks here,” said Bachler. “But we worked really good. The car was amazing today for the qualifying. The track is really cool. There are so many fans out there, which I enjoyed. The layout is mega.”
“The grip level is a little low but it’s for everybody this time. I’m just happy about the pole position.”
Bachler and Patrick Pilet will line up on the front row of the combined GT grid alongside the GTD class polesitter, the #92 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche of Alec Udell.
Defending GTD champion Roman de Angelis set the early benchmark in the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3, on a 1’24.647. That could have stood as the top time.
But with less than three minutes to go, the bespectacled Udell reeled off a 1’24.539 – ten milliseconds off of Bachler’s time – and a tenth of a second ahead of De Angelis, enough for Udell to win his first pole and a great first pole for the Kellymoss racing team in their first season in IMSA’s top series!
Behind De Angelis, The Heart of Racing Team locked out the second row in the GTD grid as the #23 Aston Martin (Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas) qualified second in GTD Pro. The #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon) was third, the #14 VasserSullivan Lexus (Jack Hawksworth/Ben Barnicoat) slid to fourth in class, all ahead of the #3 Corvette Racing C8.R GTD (Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor) in fifth.
The rest of the GTD “Standard” running order is propped up by the #80 AO Racing Porsche (Gunnar Jeannette/Seb Priaulx), the #12 VasserSullivan Lexus (Frankie Montecalvo/Aaron Telitz), and the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of GTD points leaders Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow in fifth.
Green flag for the Motul Course de Monterey is scheduled for 12:10 PM PDT (local time) / 3:10 PM EDT / 8:10 PM BST.
Images courtesy of IMSA
