The scars on the left front of the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R tell part of the story of an eventful Qualifying for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Pipo Derani scored his third straight pole of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship season, but it wasn’t a straightforward affair!
Derani had been swapping provisional pole with the two Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s and ultimately wrestled control with a time of 1:11.388 with about seven minutes remaining.
Nick Yelloly got close in the #25 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 but fell just nine milliseconds short of usurping Derani from the pole. The man to watch was Sébastien Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, who emerged from the pits with less than five minutes left, enough time for a handful of flying laps.
But as Bourdais was rounding the first sector, Derani locked up through turn nine and hit the tyre barriers. He was able to find reverse gear and avoided bringing out a red flag which would have cost him the pole position. Local yellows were lifted just as Bourdais came through.
The Frenchman timed in third with a 1:11.411 – the top three were covered by just 0.023s, but it’s Derani and Jack Aitken who start on pole, sharing the front row with Yelloly and Connor de Phillippi who put in a great run in the #25 BMW.
“I think I put the lap in early and it was enough apparently, but on that last flying lap, I didn’t have any information from the team. I actually requested them not to talk too much over the radio. I was coming in a little bit quicker so I said, well I’m just going to try it to make sure that I have an extra gap in case it’s necessary – we always know at the end of qualifying things tend to get a little quicker. Then I just locked up and went straight into the barriers,” Derani said.
“I knew that I needed to come off the barriers quite quickly because of a red flag. I quickly reminded myself how to get it done. Nevertheless, we knew how important it was to be on pole here for this race. We can swap the nose, but here it’s always important to start on pole, so I’m happy with that.”
Bourdais and Renger van der Zande will share the second row with the defending race winners Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet – Tandy qualified the #6 Penske Porsche in fourth, ahead of the #7 Penske Porsche of Dane Cameron in fifth.
The #40 of Jordan Taylor was the fastest of the two Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06es, in sixth, followed by young Tijmen van der Helm who did well to put the #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche in seventh – ahead of Filipe Albuquerque in the #10 WTRAndretti Acura, and Philipp Eng in the #24 RLL BMW.
Super-sub Mike Rockenfeller rounded out the GTP grid in the #5 Proton Competition Porsche, 1.7 seconds off pole.
Vasser Sullivan Racing’s decision to bring both its Lexus RC F GT3s to Long Beach has yielded a front-row lockout in the GTD category, led by Parker Thompson, who scored his second pole of the year in the #89 shared with Ben Barnicoat.
The renumbered #14 machine, entering as a one-off from GTD Pro, went to the top of the timesheets with seven minutes left in the 15-minute GTD session. Thompson’s benchmark time of 1:17.557 would have been good enough to win the pole, but he improved twice, ultimately setting a 1:17.357 – a new GTD course record.
Thompson enjoyed his first weekend working with what is normally the #14 crew. “This is my first weekend working with them. For them to take me under their wing and bring me in…there were a lot of things I had to learn in one day. I had to learn a race track, I had to learn a car. And I had to learn qualifying all over again. Glad we got the job done!” Thompson said after winning the pole.
His team-mate Frankie Montecalvo and new co-driver Jack Hawksworth will start second in the #12 Lexus, courtesy of a 1:17.619 from Montecalvo, who normally shares the #12 car with Thompson.
Reigning Le Mans LMP2 class winner Albert Costa qualified third in the #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, followed by Roman de Angelis in the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3, Danny Formal in the #45 WTRAndretti Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 – and Mikaël Grenier, in the repaired #32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, in sixth.
But the #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 (Sheena Monk/Stevan McAleer) did not set a time, requiring an engine change after McAleer set the fastest time in Practice 2 hours earlier. They’ll start 17th in class, at the back of the GTD grid.
The 100-minute Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach starts Saturday at 1:35 PM PDT (local time).
Images © Richard Dole, Michael L. Levitt / IMSA
