Thanks to a record lap from Ross Gunn, the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Gunn and Alex Riberas will start on the pole for tomorrow’s Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park.
Gunn captured his second career IMSA pole position this afternoon on a partly cloudy day. Antonio Garcia, who led Practice 2 with an unofficial lap record, became the first driver to break the 51-second threshold as he posted a 50.992 second lap time, and followed it up with a 50.897 with less than seven minutes to go in the 15-minute session.
But just seconds later, Gunn went even quicker, posting a 50.593 second time to move up to the top spot, and surpass the previous course record of 51.079 set by Matt Campbell last year. No other team or driver could match that pace, giving Gunn and Riberas 35 points for the GTD Pro class pole, their first of the 2023 season.
GTD Pro championship leaders Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat will start second in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. Hawksworth set a 50.784 to secure the outside of the front row. Garcia’s best time was good enough for third in the #3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD.
Behind them were Jules Gounon in the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, and Patrick Pilet in the #9 Porsche 911 GT3 R for defending Northeast GP winners Pfaff Motorsports.
Qualifying sixth overall and first in GTD was the #32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes of Mike Skeen and Mikaël Grenier, after Skeen won his first IMSA class pole position – and the first pole for Team Korthoff Motorsports in 2023.
Skeen’s best time of 51.157 seconds is a new GTD class record, surpassing the previous mark set by Trent Hindman in 2019.
The #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 Evo (Brendan Iribe/Frederik Schandorff) and the #78 Forte Racing by USRT Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Misha Goikhberg/Loris Spinelli) will share the fourth row in Saturday’s race, and the fifth row has the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin (Roman de Angelis/Marco Sørensen) and #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus (Frankie Montecalvo/Aaron Telitz).
GTD Championship leaders Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow will start 14th in the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3.
The two hour, 40 minute Northeast Grand Prix starts at 12:10 PM EDT (local time).
Images courtesy of IMSA
