Meyer Shank Acura No. 60 takes pole at IMSA Indianapolis

No. 60 Meyer Shank Acura at Indianapolis Motor Speedway | Credit: IMSA

The No. 60 Meyer Shank Acura secured pole position in GTP with Tom Blomqvist at the wheel in qualifying at IMSA Indianapolis Motor Speedway Battle on the Bricks. The No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin took pole in GTD. In GTD PRO, The No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW went fastest. Pole in LMP2 went to the No. 2 United Autosports USA car.

Qualifying for the Indianapolis Battle on the Bricks began at 3:15 pm track time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

GTD

The No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin led the grid out of the pits straight after the green flag.

The No. 45 Wayne Taylor Lamborghini logged the fastest of the banker laps straight out of the gate. The 45 of course coming back from a nightmare accident at VIR last time out which saw Danny Formal in rough shape after the Lamborghini lit on fire following an energy pit stop.

The No. 66 Gradient Racing Mustang then claimed the fastest time, with Till Bechtolsheimer at the wheel. Shortly after, four Ferraris came to occupy the top five with the No. 21 Af Corse, No. 47 Cetilar Racing, No. 34 Conquest Racing, and No. 70 Inception Racing cars.

The No. 27 Heart of Racing car on track | Credit: IMSA

Casper Stevenson put in a mighty 1:23.088 lap time to go fastest. The No. 80 Lone Star Racing and No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes put in solid laps, going third and fourth position with just under five minutes remaining.

The grid could not improve massively on their lap times before the checkered flag waved. The No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin secured their second pole position of the year with Casper Stevenson at the wheel. The No. 21 Af Corse Ferrari finished P2 driven by Lilou Wadoux Ducellier. In third place was the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes, driven by IMSA debuting driver Lin Hodenius.

GTD PRO

The No. 81 Dragonspeed led the two practice sessions this weekend, and was the first car out of pit lane when the green flag waved. 

Noticeably the No. 1 Paul Miller BMW and the No. 9 Pfaff Lamborghini waited to exit the pits until the rest of the grid had already logged benchmark laps. Laurin Heinrich put in the fastest first lap of the grid in the No. 77 AO Racing “Rexy” car with over 10 minutes remaining.

Soon after, the grid started logging legitimately indicative times, with Christopher Mies in the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang going fastest. Behind the Mustang was the No. 3 Pratt Miller Corvette in second, whose position was quickly snapped up by the No. 81 Dragonspeed Ferrari.

The No. 77 "Rexy" AO Racing Porsche in Indianapolis | Credit: IMSA

The No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW went fastest with a 1:23.337 with under eight minutes remaining. The No. 75 75 Express car went second fastest soon after. The 75 Express car enters this weekend for its second IMSA outing this season after the 24 Hours of Daytona.

Dan Harper ultimately secured pole in GTD PRO in his No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW. The No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang took second position, followed by the No. 75 75 Express Mercedes. 

Interestingly, the No. 9 and No. 77 cars finished with the same time of 1:23.559, which when the stewards looked into it, the Pfaff was 0.0001 faster and secured seventh position.

LMP2

The LMP2s rolled out for their qualifying session at 4:05 pm track time. A pair of cars had penalties that carried over from practice into this session. The No. 11 TDS Racing and the No. 8 Tower Motorsports cars were both penalized for causing a caution in practice, forcing them to lose their fastest lap of the session.

Just under three minutes into the session, the No. 73 Pratt Miller car got beached in the large gravel trap on the exit of turn three which brought out a red flag. As a result of causing a red flag, as per IMSA rules, the 73 will have their two fastest laps deleted. The car managed to get going again approaching the nine minute mark, and the green flag was brought out moments later.

With under six minutes remaining, the LMP2 grid finally logged their baseline laps, with the No. 88 Af Corse car heading the leader board with a 1:19.736. Immediately after, PJ Hyett in the No. 99 AO Racing beat that time with the first sub-1:18 time of the day.

The No. 18 Era Motorsport car on track | Credit: IMSA

Both the No. 18 Era Motorsport and the No. 88 Af Corse spun with just over three minutes remaining. Both cars resumed on track, and there was no contact between them. Nick Boulle in the No. 2 United Autosports USA and Daniel Goldburg in the No. 22 United Autosports went first and second fastest one after the other in the dwindling time remaining. 

The No. 99 AO Racing did not go down without a fight, going to third position. The No. 11 TDS Racing went second fastest, but subsequently lost their time due to their penalty that carried over from practice, going fifth.

Nick Boulle in the No. 2 and Daniel Goldburg in the No. 22 United Autosports USA cars went fastest and second fastest at the checkered flag, followed by the No. 99 AO Racing car. 

GTP

The championship-leading Porsche Penskes led the field out of the pits to start the GTP qualifying session. The whole grid logged a few warm up laps before most of the grid returned to the pits to change tyres. The strategy for Sunday’s race seemingly required a set of scrub tyres.

The No. 23 Aston Martin Valkyrie and the No. 63 Automobili Lamborghini Squadra Corse both entered the session with penalties from bringing out cautions in practice. They both will lose their best lap during this session.

Sheldon Van Der Linde was forced to miss turn one on his first flying lap in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL car. This was likely to do with heavy winds and a potential weather system blowing toward the track. There was some debris at some parts of the track that looked to be leaves as well.

Louis Deletraz in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac sat at the top of the leaderboard with just over six minutes remaining, followed by the No. 93 Meyer Shank Acura. His time was then beaten by over three tenths of a second by Tom Blomqvist in the No. 60 Meyer Shank car. The No. 40 improved, but it was not enough for provisional pole, remaining in second position.

The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac on track | Credit: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Soon after, Jack Aitken snatched up second position in his No. 31 Whelen Cadillac car, less than 0.1 seconds behind Blomqvist’s time.

As the session came to a close, the top three remained the same. Tom Blomqvist looked untouchable, taking pole position in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Acura. The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac, driven by Jack Aitken, stuck it out to take second position. Rounding out the top three was the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Cadillac driven by Louis Deletraz in third position.