The #93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 has won the pole for tomorrow’s Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America.
In a tense and close GTP Qualifying session, Nick Yelloly held off the two BMW M Team RLL cars for pole – his second of the season, and the third straight GTP pole for the red and white #93 Acura.
Dries Vanthoor in the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 laid down the gauntlet early on with a 1:49.071. But Yelloly wasn’t far behind, and on their next flying laps, it was Yelloly who went ahead, setting a 1:48.628 to take provisional pole for himself.
Vanthoor and his teammate Sheldon van der Linde still had enough left for another lap or two, but neither driver could surpass Yelloly. Van der Linde was second-fastest in the #25 BMW (1:48.681), followed by Vanthoor (1:48.683) in third.
Colin Braun in the #60 MSR Acura was fourth-fastest (1:48.708) – the top four qualifiers were covered by just eight hundredths of a second.
GTP points leader Matt Campbell qualified fifth in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, and Jack Aitken qualified sixth in the #31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R, leading the way for their respective manufacturers.
And while Ross Gunn could only qualify tenth, his #23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie was competitive, within seven-tenths of Yelloly’s pole lap.
AO Racing’s PJ Hyett continued his mastery of LMP2 qualifying, taking his third straight IMSA pole in the #99 ORECA 07-Gibson, by two-thirds of a second.
Hyett leapt to provisional pole the first time with a 1:53.697, which would have been enough for pole no matter what – but on his next lap, he improved to a 1:53.283, and on his final lap, a 1:53.240.
George Kurtz was the only other driver to break the one-minute, 54-second barrier in his #04 Crowdstrike by APR ORECA. Kurtz was second, ahead of the #22 United Autosports USA ORECA of points leader Daniel Goldburg.
Goldburg lost his fastest qualifying lap for causing a red flag in practice, but his second-best time was still good for third place, ahead of the big surprise of the session: Tõnis Kasemets and Team Tonis in the bare carbon fibre #61 ORECA qualified fourth in his first outing with his upstart team!
DragonSpeed won its third GTD PRO pole of the season, and Giacomo Altoe won his second individually, holding off the two Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports factory cars by mere fractions of a second.
Altoe drove the #81 Ferrari 296 GT3 to provisional pole with a 2:03.904 with less than five minutes left in the session; the two Corvettes came across the line just seconds later, with the #3 Z06 GT3.R of Alexander Sims in second, and the #4 of Tommy Milner in third.
Only two hundredths of a second separated Altoe from Sims and Milner, with the fourth-fastest car more than half a second behind them.
That was the #48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper, who was fourth, ahead of the #1 of teammate Madison Snow in fifth. Christopher Mies was sixth in the #65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3, and Klaus Bachler was seventh in the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R.
GTD championship co-leader Russell Ward was unstoppable in the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, as he rolled on to his first pole of the season.
Ward posted an impressive time on his first flying lap at 2:03.888, then improved on his next trip to a 2:03.745. No other driver surpassed either lap time in GTD or GTD PRO.
Only the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Casper Stevenson was within two-tenths of Ward’s time, qualifying second in GTD.
Onofrio Triarsi was third-fastest in the #021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari, just a few hundredths ahead of Robert Wickens, who was fourth in the #36 DXDT Racing Corvette. Fellow Canadian Parker Thompson completed the top five in the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus.
The Motul SportsCar Grand Prix starts at 1:10 PM CT (local time), airing live in over 230 countries on the official IMSA YouTube channel and IMSA.TV, and in the United States on Peacock.
Images © Jack Webster / dailysportscar.com
