Acura Meyer Shank Racing on pole for the Road America race

Written by Ghazlan Atqiya Firmansyah

The Meyer Shank Racing crew celebrating their pole position | Credit: Acura Newsroom

The No.93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian took the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) pole position for the upcoming SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America.

At the hands of Nick Yelloly, Acura has achieved three consecutive pole positions. The Briton finished the session the fastest with two BMW RLL behind him. There was not much to separate the leading Acura and the BMWs, as only 0.055 separated pole from third. Colin Braun in the sister No.60 car took fourth.

Yelloly said: "Very happy about getting the pole, of course, it's the best place to start.

"And I got a couple more points as well. I made a little mistake on the lap after, where I was actually tracking a little bit faster.

"I'm glad we were able to put it on pole after all, with two of my old sparring partners from my old manufacturer behind me!

"Nice way to finish the day. Great job to all the men and women at HRC and Meyer Shank Racing for putting it all together in order to give me a car that was capable of accomplishing this. Onwards to tomorrow."

Braun thought he had a decent qualifying session and admitted he struggled to get a clean lap in and get into the rhythm.

"Decent qualifying for us.

"[I] struggled a little bit this morning just to get a clean lap, but I knew we had a good car. It's just a matter of putting it together and getting a rhythm and getting a lap in. It's so close out there.

The 36-year-old was encouraged by Yelloly's pole. He believes the team has a proper race car that can fight at the front of the pack.

"Congrats to the No.93 guys and Nick, that was a nice lap.

"But it's super tight in this GTP class. I feel like we have a good race car, and certainly [having] both Acuras starting in the front gives us some options.

"[I'm] proud of all the guys. They've been working hard, and it's nice to see it paying off."

Yelloly and Renger van der Zande currently sit third in the GTP Drivers' Championship with 1766 points. They had a deficit of 250 points behind the No.7 Porsche's Nick Tandy and Felipe Nasr, and a further 12 points to the leaders, No.6's Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet.

Meanwhile, in the Manufacturers' Championship, Acura is in second place with 2092 points, with Porsche holding a slim 90-point lead.