Bamber wins Detroit IMSA pole for Whelen Cadillac

GM brands will start on both class pole positions in tomorrow’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic in Detroit, led by the GTP pole-winning No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R of Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber.

Aitken won the pole in the red No. 31 Cadillac at Sebring, but this time Bamber took the wheel for qualifying and set a new track record around the Renaissance Center street circuit. Bamber’s best lap, set with less than five minutes to go, was a 1m05.313s.

And making it an all-Cadillac front row was Laguna Seca polesitter Louis Delétraz, who set a 1m05.635s to go second fastest in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac.

Any chances for anyone to split up an all-Cadillac front row were tarnished with about three minutes to go; Felipe Nasr in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 went off at Turn 1, and as he was trying to get out from against the tire barrier, Kévin Estre in the No. 6 Penske Porsche slid off course and hit the wall at the exit of Turn 1.

Estre was OK but the subsequent red flag for the accident ended GTP qualifying, and cost Estre his two fastest laps. The two factory Porsches will start down in eighth and 10th place. In addition, Tijmen van der Helm in the No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche was held for the first five minutes due to a procedural penalty – he and GTP drivers’ championship leader Laurin Heinrich will start 11th and last.

Behind the two Corvettes, last year’s Detroit winner Nick Yelloly put the No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 third on the grid with a 1m05.852s, putting him just a couple hundredths clear of Marco Wittmann in the No. 25 BMW M Team WRT Hybrid V8.

Sheldon van der Linde rounded out the top five in the No. 24 WRT BMW, ahead of Tom Blomqvist in the No. 60 MSR Acura, and Filipe Albuquerque in the No. 10 WTR Cadillac.

Sims kept the GM party going in GTD Pro. Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

And in GTD Pro, it’s advantage Chevrolet, and advantage Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, whose two Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs locked out the front row just like their siblings at Cadillac.

For most of qualifying it was a matter of which Corvette driver would take pole position: Alexander Sims in the No. 3 car, or Tommy Milner in the No. 4. Sims was on it from the drop of the green flag, even escaping a brush with the tire barrier at Turn 3. Ultimately, in the last two minutes, Sims wrestled the pole position away with a 1m09.354s, improving from a 1m09.564s that initially took provisional pole.

On his final flying lap, Milner improved to a 1m09.397s to secure an all-Corvette front row.

After locking out the front row last year, the two Ford Racing Mustang GT3s could do no better than fourth and fifth in qualifying. The No. 64 of Ben Barker set a 1m09.708s, qualifying ahead of the No. 65 of Frédéric Vervisch, who was fifth quickest despite a brief trip down the turn one runoff.

Splitting up the factory Chevy and Ford cars was Ben Barnicoat, who qualified third in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 with a 1m09.663s.

Only hours after Neil Verhagen crashed at Turn 8, he put the repaired No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 Evo sixth on the grid, even after the loss of his fastest lap of the session. It put him one place ahead of guest star Chaz Mostert in the No. 15 Vasser Sullivan Lexus.

IMSA will get a brief 20-minute practice session tomorrow morning at 11:10am ET, followed by the 100-minute race itself, starting at 4:10pm ET.

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