Petit Le Mans: Acura Team Penske, Corvette, MSR take poles
Acura Team Penske’s ARX-05s locked out the front row for tomorrow’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Motul Petit Le Mans as Dane Cameron edged teammate Ricky Taylor by less than 0.1sec.
Harry Tincknell was the first driver to duck under the 69sec barrier around the 2.54-mile Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta course, with an impressive 68.636sec in the #55 Mazda RT24-P, but Cameron trimmed that to 68.593s and his Acura Team Penske teammate Ricky Taylor shaved a few hundredths more to go P1 with a 68.506.
Tincknell then pitted, his challenge for pole over with five minutes still remaining while lying third, but Cameron kept working and went 0.094sec faster than Taylor with a 68.412sec, to claim pole with a new track record for DPi cars.
Felipe Nasr’s eventually slotted the Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R just ahead of Tincknell to claim third, while Ryan Briscoe placed the Wayne Taylor Racing Caddy in fifth ahead of the second Mazda of Tristan Nunez.
With his final flyer, Sebastien Bourdais moved ahead of JDC-Miller MotorSports teammate Gabriel Aubry to claim seventh, the entire class covered by just 0.817sec.
In LMP2 Patrick Kelly’s PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entry was fastest, 1.6sec ahead of Rob Hodes in the Inter Europol Competition car, making its IMSA debut. John Farano was third in the Tower Motorsports by Starworks machine.
Antonio Garcia set a searing record-breaking pace on his final flying lap to land the GT Le Mans championship-leading #3 Corvette C8.R on class pole. His startling 1min15.163sec lap left him over a quarter second faster than Connor De Phillippi in the #25 BMW M8.
“I think it was my best qualifying lap," said Garcia. "I had never gotten pole here; I have been second many times by thousandths or hundredths of a second!
"The Corvette C8.R was perfect… I would say the first two laps were really good, not good enough for pole because a couple of guys got me there. I didn’t know if I could go faster but obviously I really wanted it. That was a really, really good lap. Sometimes I have a couple of mistakes, but I think today I put together a whole lap.”
The second of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-run BMWs was third thanks to John Edwards’ efforts, while Laurens Vanthoor was half a second off the pace in the faster of the two Porsche 911 RSRs.
Tommy Milner was 0.7sec slower than Garcia but managed to outpace the second Porsche of Nick Tandy.
In GT Daytona, Jeff Westphal set a 1min19.464sec in five laps and then pitted the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 with six minutes of the 15 still remaining. Almost immediately, however, Shinya Michimi in the #86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX beat him to top spot by 0.173sec, to score MSR’s first pole position of the season.
Frankie Montecalvo fell 0.1sec short and slotted into third in the #12 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F.
Madison Snow was fastest of the Lamborghini Huracan drivers, taking fourth for Paul Miller Racing, ahead of Robby Foley’s Turner Motorsports BMW M6.
Misha Goikhberg was only 0.375sec slower than pacesetting MSR Acura temporary teammate Michimi, but that still left him down in sixth, just ahead of local driver Andrew Davis of Team Hardpoint’s Audi R8 and Zacharie Robichon’s Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911.
Two of the GTD title contenders have been left down on the fifth row – the second Lexus that Michael de Quesada shares with Jack Hawksworth and Aaron Telitz, and the Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R which was qualified by Ryan Hardwick.
Qualifying results:
| Cla | Num | Driver | Class | Chassis | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 |  Juan Pablo Montoya  Dane Cameron  Simon Pagenaud | DPi | Acura DPi | 1'08.412 | |
| 2 | 7 |  Helio Castroneves Ricky Taylor Alexander Rossi | DPi | Acura DPi | 1'08.506 | 0.094 |
| 3 | 31 | Felipe Nasr Pipo Derani  Filipe Albuquerque | DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'08.612 | 0.200 |
| 4 | 55 | Jonathan Bomarito  Harry Tincknell Ryan Hunter-Reay | DPi | Mazda DPi | 1'08.636 | 0.224 |
| 5 | 10 |  Renger van der Zande  Ryan Briscoe  Scott Dixon | DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'08.850 | 0.438 |
| 6 | 77 | Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez Olivier Pla | DPi | Mazda DPi | 1'08.925 | 0.513 |
| 7 | 5 | Sébastien Bourdais Tristan Vautier Loic Duval | DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'09.040 | 0.628 |
| 8 | 85 | Chris Miller Matheus Leist Gabriel Aubry | DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'09.229 | 0.817 |
| 9 | 52 | Patrick Kelly  Simon Trummer Scott Huffaker | LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'11.590 | 3.178 |
| 10 | 51 | Austin McCusker  Jakub Smiechowski Rob Hodes | LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'13.161 | 4.749 |
| 11 | 8 |  John Farano  Mikkel Jensen Job Van Uitert | LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'14.082 | 5.670 |
| 12 | 3 |  Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor Nick Catsburg | GTLM | Corvette C8.R | 1'15.163 | 6.751 |
| 13 | 25 | Bruno Spengler Connor de Phillippi Colton Herta | GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 1'15.434 | 7.022 |
| 14 | 24 |  Jesse Krohn John Edwards Augusto Farfus | GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 1'15.615 | 7.203 |
| 15 | 912 | Earl Bamber  Laurens Vanthoor Mathieu Jaminet | GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | 1'15.657 | 7.245 |
| 16 | 4 | Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner Marcel Fassler | GTLM | Corvette C8.R | 1'15.856 | 7.444 |
| 17 | 911 | Nick Tandy Frédéric Makowiecki Matt Campbell | GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | 1'15.858 | 7.446 |
| 18 | 86 |  Mario Farnbacher Matt McMurry  Shinya Michimi | GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 1'19.291 | 10.879 |
| 19 | 63 | Cooper MacNeil  Alessandro Balzan Jeff Westphal | GTD | Ferrari 488 GT3 | 1'19.464 | 11.052 |
| 20 | 12 | Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell Kyle Kirkwood | GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 1'19.563 | 11.151 |
| 21 | 48 | Bryan Sellers Madison Snow Corey Lewis | GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 1'19.567 | 11.155 |
| 22 | 96 | Bill Auberlen Robby Foley Dillon Machavern | GTD | BMW M6 GT3 | 1'19.657 | 11.245 |
| 23 | 57 | Alvaro Parente Mikhail Goikhberg Trent Hindman | GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 1'19.666 | 11.254 |
| 24 | 30 | Rob Ferriol Markus Winkelhock Andrew Davis | GTD | Audi R8 LMS GT3 | 1'19.722 | 11.310 |
| 25 | 9 |  Dennis Olsen Zacharie Robichon Lars Kern | GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 1'19.774 | 11.362 |
| 26 | 14 | Jack Hawksworth Aaron Telitz Michael de Quesada | GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 1'19.908 | 11.496 |
| 27 | 16 | Ryan Hardwick Patrick Long Jan Heylen | GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 1'20.399 | 11.987 |
| 28 | 23 | Ian James Roman De Angelis Darren Turner | GTD | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 | 1'20.434 | 12.022 |
| 29 | 44 | Andy Lally John Potter Spencer Pumpelly | GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 1'20.453 | 12.041 |
| 30 | 74 | Gar Robinson Lawson Aschenbach Ben Keating | GTD | Mercedes-AMG GT3 | 1'20.622 | 12.210 |
| 31 | 38 | James McGuire Matthew Bell Colin Braun | LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 0.000 | |
| View full results | ||||||
Pla named as full-time MSR Acura driver for 2021
The 23rd annual IMSA Petit Le Mans is underway!
The British pair at the heart of Lexus's sportscar push
Have you heard the one about two British guys driving for a Japanese manufacturer in America’s top sportscar series? Time to sit down and talk with Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat about racing across the pond… and your accent being mistaken for Australian!
Why Peugeot couldn't afford to take a Le Mans gamble in 2022
Ahead of the much-anticipated arrival of its new 9X8 Hypercar, Peugeot revealed that it would not be entering this year's Le Mans 24 Hours with its incoming machinery. Although development restrictions for homologated cars are partially responsible, the French marque can draw on its own lessons from its history in sportscars
Why the GTP name undermines convergence between IMSA and WEC
OPINION: The adoption by IMSA of the GTP name for its forthcoming LMDh versus Le Mans Hypercar era in 2023 appeals to fans of nostalgia - but it undermines the commonality achieved by bringing its rulebook into line with the WEC. GTP or Hypercar, both sides should settle on a single name
Celebrating the weird and wonderful monsters of sportscar racing
Few disciplines of motorsport offer better possibilities to build a colossus of the track than sportscars. For Autosport's recent Monsters of Motorsport special issue, we picked out some of the finest (and not so fine) that have graced sportscar classics including Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring
How Castroneves and Meyer Shank conquered another US classic
Helio Castroneves continued his fine start to life with Meyer Shank Racing that netted the 2021 Indianapolis 500 victory by prevailing in last weekend's Daytona 24 Hours together with teammates Tom Blomqvist, Oliver Jarvis and Simon Pagenaud. As Cadillac fell by the wayside, the Brazilian veteran won out in an all-Acura duel to the finish
How Derani's long road to title success exorcised painful memories
It took Pipo Derani no time at all to establish himself as a winner in IMSA, winning the Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours on his first two starts in 2016. But it took until the final corner of the 2021 season before he could become its champion, the culmination of a journey that he believes has made him a better driver.
The significance of the next step in WEC/IMSA convergence
Following the latest convergence connection permitting Le Mans Hypercars from the FIA World Endurance Championship to compete against LMDh entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship from 2023, it could open up enticing options not only to manufacturers but also for the calendar and race formats
Why a Mazda IMSA Prototype title would bring bitter joy
Can Mazda win this year’s IMSA Prototype championship? Undoubtedly. But it will be the culmination of an achingly hard struggle, after which the brand has decided to quit. David Malsher-Lopez tells the story of a bizarre blend of heartache and positivity.