California 8 Hours: Acura beats Porsches to the top spot in qualifying

The veteran Dutchman turned a 1min24.483sec lap on his final tour of the 2.238-mile course in Monterey, CA, to edge by a mere 0.081sec the best effort of compatriot Jeroen Bleekemolen in the ProAm Porsche 911 GT3R of Black Swan Racing.

The Porsche Motorsport NA Wright Motorsports 911, shared by Pat Long, Jorg Bergmeister and Romain Dumas was third a further three-tenths of a second off the pace, with two more Porsches right behind – the HKG/GMG Racing entry and the Calvert Dynamics/GMG Pro-Am car piloted by Andrew Davis.

Behind this gaggle of Porsches came three Audi R8s from Magnus Racing, WRT, and Land Motorsport, with Ryan Eversley ninth in the second RealTime Acura, and Alvaro Parente 10^th in the K-PAX McLaren.

Then came the two Marc Mazda 3 V8s in the Invitational class, while top of the GT4 runners were the two TRG-run Aston Martin Vantages. However, both suffered trouble. The #07 car suffered a broken suspension while in Brandon Davis’ hands, while Thomas Merrill sent the #3 car off the road at Rainey Curve with two minutes to go, halting the session early.

Automatic Racing’s Eric Lux was third fastest in another Aston.

Only 15 of the 19 cars make it through to this afternoon’s Super Pole shootout, and the four entries to miss out will inevitably be GT4 cars – the three Porsche Caymans and the Ginetta G55 of Ian Lacy Racing.