MSR Acura snatches third consecutive IMSA pole at Road America

The No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 will start Sunday's Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America from pole.

In a tense 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 No. 93 Acura.

Dries Vanthoor in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 laid down the gauntlet early on with a 1m49.071s, but Yelloly wasn't far behind, and on their next flying laps it was Yelloly who went ahead, setting a 1m48.628s 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 No. 25 BMW (1m48.681s), followed by Vanthoor (1m48.683s) in third. Colin Braun in the No. 60 MSR Acura was fourth-fastest (1m48.708s) – the top four qualifiers were covered by just eight hundredths of a second.

GTP points leader Matt Campbell qualified fifth in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, and Jack Aitken qualified sixth in the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R, leading the way for their respective manufacturers.

While Ross Gunn could only qualify tenth, his No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie was competitive, within seven-tenths of Yelloly's pole lap.

Jake Galstad/IMSA

AO Racing's PJ Hyett continued his mastery of LMP2 qualifying, taking his third straight IMSA pole in the No. 99 ORECA 07-Gibson, by two thirds of a second. Hyett leapt to provisional pole the first time with a 1m53.697s, which would have been enough for pole no matter what, but on his next lap he improved to a 1m53.283s, and on his final lap, a 1m53.240s.

George Kurtz was the only other driver to break the 1m54s barrier in his No. 04 Crowdstrike by APR ORECA. Kurtz was second, ahead of the No. 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, Tonis Kasemets and Team Tonis in the bare carbon fiber No. 61 ORECA in fourth in his first outing with the upstart team.

Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

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 No. 81 Ferrari 296 GT3 to provisional pole with a 2m03.904s with less than five minutes left in the session; the two Corvettes came across the line just seconds later, with the No. 3 Z06 GT3.R of Alexander Sims in second and the No. 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 – the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper ahead of the No. 1 of teammate Madison Snow in fifth.

Christopher Mies was sixth in the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3, and Klaus Bachler was seventh in the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Pfaff Motorsports did not run in qualifying with its primary No. 9 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, which was written off after a Practice accident Saturday morning. Lamborghini came to the rescue, arranging for Forte Racing to lend its backup car to Pfaff for the race on Sunday. Even better, Pfaff has enough body panels on hand to ensure that the signature red buffalo plaid livery will be on the track.

GTD championship co-leader Russell Ward was unstoppable in the No. 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 2m03.888s, then improved on his next trip to a 2m03.745s. No other driver surpassed either lap time in GTD or GTD PRO. Only the No. 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 No. 021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari, just a few hundredths ahead of Robert Wickens, who was fourth in the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette. Fellow Canadian Parker Thompson completed the top five in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus.

The Motul SportsCar Grand Prix starts at 2:10pm ET, airing live in the United States on Peacock and over 230 countries on the official IMSA YouTube channel and IMSA.TV.

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