Clarke prevails for overall IMSA pole at CTMP

Qualifying for the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park featured an outstanding three-driver battle for overall pole position between LMP2 Bronze standouts Jeremy Clarke, Misha Goikhberg and PJ Hyett, but it was Clarke and the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA 07-Gibson that prevailed at the checkered flag. Clarke and Inter Europol took their third pole position of the year, ahead of Goikhberg and Hyett.

Both Clarke and Goikhberg were among the drivers that changed tires during the 15-minute LMP2 qualifying session, and that new rubber was to their benefit. Clarke took provisional pole from the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA of Hyett, then improved at the end, setting a 1m07.904s, the only driver under the one-minute, eight-second barrier.

Canadian driver Goikhberg’s 1m08.077s lap put the No. 52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen ORECA on the front row of the grid in second. Hyett, on a single set of Michelin tires, qualified third with a 1m08.186s.

Daniel Goldburg qualified fourth in the No. 22 United Autosports USA car, followed by LMP2 points leader George Kurtz in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR car.

A quartet of Canadian drivers rounded out the LMP2 running order, led by Phil Fayer (No. 2 United Autosports USA) ahead of Chris Cumming (Pratt Miller Motorsports), Tobias Lütke (TDS Racing), and John Farano (Tower Motorsports).

It was a frantic scramble for pole position in the last few minutes of GTD Pro qualifying, but with a best lap of 1m14.382s, Neil Verhagen in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO held off strong competition at the very end to take his and the team’s first pole of the season.

It’s also Verhagen’s second consecutive CTMP pole position, and his lap time was just nine milliseconds off the existing GTD Pro qualifying lap record.

With less than three minutes left on the clock, Verhagen displaced the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R of Nicky Catsburg from the top spot. But Catsburg and teammate Alexander Sims still had enough time to fight back, pushing their cars to the ragged edge on their last flying laps.

Ultimately, they qualified third and fourth, with the No. 3 Corvette of Sims (1m14.569s) just edging out the No. 4 of Catsburg (1m14.605s).

Ahead of both of them, in a great surprise, was rookie Max Esterson in the No. 59 RLL Team McLaren 720S GT3 (1m14.567s). Esterson will share the front row of the GTD Pro grid after what had been a tough two practices for the RLL McLaren crew. Just 0.038 seconds covered the collective margin between Esterson, Sims and Catsburg.

Scott Andrews was a solid fifth in the No. 68 Car Blanche Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, making its first GTD Pro appearance of the season. Jack Hawksworth was sixth fastest in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3.

And in GTD, the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage took its fourth pole position of the year despite serving a five minute hold at the start of the session for not completing its required torque sensor offset test.

But GTD points leader Eduardo Barrichello needed less than the 10 minutes on track he was provided to stick the No. 27 Aston Martin on pole, setting a 1m15.130s to grab the pole by over two tenths of a second. It’s Barrichello’s second pole individually following the Twelve Hours of Sebring, and one which stretches out his lead in the drivers’ standings.



He’ll share the front row with the No. 36 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, which qualified second via a 1m15.373s from Mason Filippi. Co-driver Robert Wickens is expected to finish the race in the No. 36 Corvette tomorrow.

Just behind Filippi, Benjamin Pedersen qualified third in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus, followed by Russell Ward in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, all three cars covered by just 0.023s. Last year’s GTD class winning car, the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Danny Formal), qualified in fifth.

Lorenzo Patrese in the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari wound up eighth in the end; his fastest lap in Qualifying, which would have been good enough for fifth, was deleted as his penalty for crashing in practice yesterday.

He was then demoted from seventh to eighth when four of his laps were deleted for failure to adhere to the car’s controlled powertrain parameters.

The Chevrolet Grand Prix at CTMP starts tomorrow at 2:05 PM ET, airing domestically on Peacock in the United States, and in over 200 countries on the official IMSA YouTube channel and IMSA.tv.

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