DXDT Racing’s Alec Udell and Turner Motorsport’s Robby Foley split the pole positions for Race 1 and Race 2 of GT World Challenge America at Road America – with Udell starting up front today, and Foley starting up front tomorrow with a new course record.
Ellis has been the maestro of Race 1 qualifying sessions this year and continued as such on a cloudy Saturday morning. Bill Auberlen and Luca Mars put up respectable benchmark times on their first laps, but the Anglo-Swiss driver of the #91 Mercedes-AMG GT3 would crush those markers.
Ellis posted a 2:03.976, breaking last year’s course record and standing as the pole-winning time by seven-tenths of a second at the end.
This would have been Ellis’ fourth straight overall pole position in Race 1s this year – but after Qualifying, the #91 Mercedes-AMG was found to be below the minimum ride height as dictated by the SRO Balance of Performance.
The #91 Mercedes was therefore moved to the back of the grid for both races (Jeff Burton had already qualified 15th out of 15 cars for Race 2).
Alec Udell continued his strong form, going second-fastest in the #63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R – which then became outright pole position for the #63 Corvette, with a time of 2:04.690.
Second place went to the #28 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Auberlen, just ahead of the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 of Mars in third.
Madison Snow was fourth-fastest in the new #99 Random Vandals Racing BMW, ahead of Pro class championship leader Adam Adelson in the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
The first Am class pole position of 2024 went to Will Hardeman, in an impressive sixth aboard the #19 Esses Racing Mercedes – and just a few hundredths up on the Pro-Am class #08 DXDT Racing Corvette of debutant Bryson Morris in seventh.
Pro-Am title rivals, Samantha Tan in her #38 ST Racing BMW and Justin Rothberg in the #29 Turner Motorsport BMW, were eighth and ninth – and Jake Pedersen was tenth in the #85 RS1 Porsche.
QUALIFYING 1 RESULTS (UPDATED) >>
After a five-minute interlude, Qualifying 2 got underway with a number of drivers setting very competitive benchmark times.
One of those drivers was Robby Foley, coming off a class win in the IMSA SportsCar Classic at Road America just a few weeks ago. Foley took the provisional pole for Sunday’s race with a 2:04.388 but found more speed on his second lap.
The end result was another new course record: A 2:03.762 from Foley which gave Turner Motorsport its first pole of the 2024 season, and a big boost for their long-shot championship hopes in Pro-Am.
In the final minutes, the #63 DXDT Racing Corvette secured another front-row start – this time, a late flyer from Tommy Milner put him second on the grid. That’s their fifth Pro class pole in six races.
Milner edged out the #120 Wright Porsche of Elliott Skeer by just three milliseconds – Skeer will start third tomorrow, ahead of the impressive Tom Sargent, who was fourth in the #32 GMG Racing Porsche.
Despite a late spin coming out of turn seven into turn eight, Bryan Sellers was still fifth-fastest in the #08 DXDT Racing Corvette, ahead of Neil Verhagen in the #38 ST Racing BMW and Zach Veach in the #93 Racers Edge Acura.
At 60 years young, Oswaldo Negri Jnr qualified eighth overall and took the #163 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3’s first Am class pole of the year. Negri was only a second off the pole time of Foley – a great result from the 2012 Daytona 24 Hours winner!
Rounding out the top ten from Qualifying 2 was the #99 Random Vandals BMW of Kenton Koch, and another new car this weekend, the #92 MMG Porsche of Kyle Marcelli, back after a nerve issue in his arm kept him from racing in Road America two weeks ago.
The new #8 Flying Lizard Motorsports BMW (Elias Sabo/Andy Lee) qualified 12th for Race 1 and 13th for Race 2.
But in spite of the efforts of Chouest Povoledo Racing’s crew of mechanics, the #50 Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Ross Chouest and Aaron Povoledo has withdrawn from the remainder of the weekend completely. The team’s backup car – meant to be raced in GT America, suffered an engine defect severe enough to lead the team to withdraw – after the primary car crashed in practice yesterday.
This will leave just 15 cars for the remainder of the weekend including today’s first 90-minute race which starts at 3:00 PM CDT (local time).
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
