Sebastien Bourdais wheeled the golden yellow #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R to pole position for Sunday’s Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, his second GTP pole position of the year.
And it couldn’t have come at a better time for Bourdais and Renger van der Zande, who are trying to chase down a huge gap in the GTP Championship table to the Porsche Penske Motorsports 963s – with just two races left for the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac team.
Louis Deletraz in the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 was the first driver to break the one-minute, 15-second threshold and took provisional pole with a 1:14.914.
But just seconds later, Bourdais responded with a 1:14.592 – the time that secured his seventh career IMSA pole.
Deletraz improved to a 1:14.817 to secure second on the grid for him and Jordan Taylor in the #40 Acura.
Mathieu Jaminet qualified third in the #6 Penske Porsche that won last year’s two-hour, 40-minute sprint race at Indy, followed by the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Jack Aitken, who qualified fourth.
Connor de Phillippi was fifth-fastest in the #25 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8, on the third row next to the #10 WTRAndretti Acura of Ricky Taylor in sixth.
Felipe Nasr in the #7 Penske Porsche qualified seventh to match his car number – but he and Dane Cameron still have six hours of racing ahead of them tomorrow to try and put the championship out of reach before Petit Le Mans.
Rounding out the GTP field were Philipp Eng in the #24 Team RLL BMW, Gianmaria Bruni in the #5 Proton Competition Porsche, Romain Grosjean in the #63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63, and Tijmen van der Helm in the #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche. Grosjean spun at turn nine as he began his time attack in earnest.
Nick Boulle in the #52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen ORECA 07 won the pole in LMP2, his first career IMSA pole position – and a big one as he and Inter Europol/PR1 try and separate themselves from a pack of LMP2 championship contenders.
Boulle was the only LMP2 Bronze driver to crack the one-minute, 18-second barrier – first with a 1:17.860, then with a 1:17.618, enough to extend Boulle and Tom Dillmann’s lead in the LMP2 standings.
In a close fight for second in class, the edge went to Steven Thomas in the bright yellow #11 TDS Racing Oreca. Thomas outqualified the purple #2 United Autosports USA ORECA of Ben Keating by just 12 milliseconds.
And Keating was just 16 milliseconds ahead of PJ Hyett aboard the #99 AO Racing ‘Spike’ ORECA, whose streak of four consecutive LMP2 pole positions was finally broken at Indianapolis.
The #74 Riley ORECA of Gar Robinson was only seventh-fastest
Rexy is back in GTD Pro, and on his return, class championship leader Laurin Heinrich initially won the pole aboard the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R with a best time of 1:23.150, set halfway into the 15-minute combined GTD session.
However, post session, IMSA officials found a technical violation for ground clearance that would erase that time and qualifying position.
Heinrich’s #77 AO Racing Porsche moves to the rear of the combined GTD PRO and GTD field, as cars within the GT category are not gridded by class order but by qualifying times for both classes.
Perhaps more crucially for the GTD PRO class championship leader, it also negates an anticipated qualifying pole position points boost.
Prior to the infraction discovered by IMSA, Heinrich was poised to secure 35 points for the top spot and extend his 17-point lead over Ross Gunn to 27 points.
Instead, Gunn and co-driver Alex Riberas move up from a provisional sixth place in class on the grid to fifth in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. Heinrich and returning co-driver Michael Christensen will start 13th in GTD PRO.
That shifts the pre-weekend points total of Heinrich being up 17 points (2,519-2,502) to up just nine points (2,537-2,528) heading into the race.
For the revised GTD PRO order, Nicky Catsburg will move up to the pole in the #4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R he shares with Tommy Milner.
Catsburg posted a best lap of 1 minute, 23.209 seconds (105.521 mph) around the 2.439-mile, 14-turn IMS road course. This time is enough to secure Catsburg his third Motul Pole Award of the season and his WeatherTech Championship career, with the first two achieved earlier this year at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and Road America.
“It’s nice to be on pole for tomorrow,” Catsburg said. “It’s a shame for the #77, but at the same time it’s a nice surprise for me and the team. Qualifying is a little irrelevant when it comes to these long races.
“But it is good to be there. It proves that we have done good work in practice and what we are doing is working. We can build on that for the race, and I’m very pleased with where we are starting.”
Catsburg’s time was 0.059-seconds behind Heinrich’s initial effort. The new pole time is now just 0.036-seconds clear of new second starter Mike Rockenfeller, who will share the #64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 with Harry Tincknell.
While Rockenfeller had a solid qualifying session, his team-mate Dirk Müller had a frustrating session where he was spun out by the Conquest Ferrari.
Fourth-fastest in GTD Pro was the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Neil Verhagen, ahead of the #3 Pratt Miller Corvette of Alexander Sims, then Riberas in sixth.
Daniel Serra was seventh-fastest in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3, and Roman de Angelis, new to the GTD Pro class, qualified eighth in the promoted #027 Heart of Racing Aston Martin.
Mikaël Grenier scored his second GTD class pole position in three races, taking the #32 Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 to ninth overall out of 35 GTD and GTD Pro cars, and the best of the 22-car GTD class.
Grenier’s pole-winning 1:23.537 was about a quarter of a second up on the #55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 of Giammarco Levorato, second in class after winning the pole at VIR.
Parker Thompson qualified third in the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, followed by the second-placed car in the GTD championship, the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW of Patrick Gallagher.
Rasmus Lindh set a time that would have put the new #56 DragonSpeed Ferrari fifth in GTD on its debut, but the young Swede got out of his car before he was instructed, and per IMSA rules, all of his lap times were deleted – sending the #56 Ferrari to the back of the grid, along with the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG which committed the same offence.
The Battle on the Bricks begins at 11:40 AM EDT (local time)!
Images © Jack Webster / Dailysportscar.com
