Meyer Shank Racing Nabs Road Atlanta Petit Le Mans Pole

How important were five points to Tom Blomqvist? Enough to push his car to the very edge.

Blomqvist gained five points on the leading contenders for the championship by winning the Motul Pole Award in the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class for Saturday’s 25th annual Motul Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia.

His lap of 1 minute, 8.555 seconds (133.381 mph) in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-05 was two positions ahead of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 driven by Ricky Taylor, pulling Blomqvist and co-driver Oliver Jarvis within 14 points of Taylor and his co-driver, Filipe Albuquerque, heading into the 10-hour finale.

The 35 points for pole – and the five-point improvement over the No. 10 car – were the impetus behind Blomqvist’s white-knuckle lap.

“Basically, I knew we needed to outqualify them just to make our lives a little bit less difficult come tomorrow,” Blomqvist said. “We did that, but it’s 10 hours of racing. You know what it’s like here in IMSA. I’m predicting quite a lot of yellows and stuff like that. It’s going to be a proper dogfight to the end.”

The championship essentially comes down to a winner-take-all scenario: The No. 60 car has to finish just one position ahead of the No. 10 to win the championship – unless the No. 60 finishes fifth. If that happens, the No. 10 has to finish seventh for the No. 60 to claim the title. The No. 10 only has to finish ahead of the No. 60 in any scenario.

As soon as he started to press his Acura, Blomqvist knew he had a chance at the pole and the precious points that went with it.

“I knew basically when I turned into Turn 1 on my first push lap that we’ve got a chance here,” Blomqvist said. “It just gave me the little bit of extra energy I needed to give it absolutely everything.”

With 5 minutes, 30 seconds left in the session, Taylor slid off course but continued. His best lap – 1:08.802 – was good for third in the seven-car DPi field. Earl Bamber, who recorded a lap of 1:08.788, will start on the front row in the No. 02 Cadillac Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R he shares with Alex Lynn and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

The final qualifying for the DPi class, which will be replaced next season by the new Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class, saw seven cars separated by little more than half a second over the 12-turn, 2.54-mile circuit.

“It’s a testament to the type of racing IMSA generates and creates and how close this series can be,” said Blomqvist, who with Jarvis will be joined by Helio Castroneves as the third team driver. “I’m hoping we put on a great show tomorrow. I know my team is super motivated. It’s nice when you can see something, right? It gives you that little bit more.”

A little bit more was just enough.

Thomas Takes Qualifying Honors In LMP2

Steven Thomas won his second straight Le Mans Prototype 2 pole and third this season in the No. 11 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07. But it was by no means a cakewalk. Thomas’ top lap, 1:11.939 (127.107 mph), was just 0.082 seconds quicker than Dennis Andersen in the No. 20 High Class Racing ORECA.

Thomas was all smiles after earning his sixth career Motul Pole Award.

“We had a great car,” the 55-year-old said. “It’s a lot of fun when you’re my age to be able to drive a car that fast around a track like this. The car was just stuck to the road so it was a lot of fun.

“We have two (team) cars so we were able to use those over the weekend to try to find the best setup and it seems like we found it. It was a good car today.”

The LMP2 class features nearly separate battles for the team and driver championships. The No. 11’s sister car, the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen ORECA, leads the team standings by 21 points over the No. 8 Tower Motorsport ORECA. Ben Keating qualified the No. 52 in third, one spot ahead of John Farano in the No. 8.

Farano added three points to his LMP2 driver standings lead, expanding it to 36 points over Dwight Merriman and Ryan Dalziel after Merriman qualified sixth in the No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA.

Van Berlo Regroups To Capture LMP3 Pole Award

Kay van Berlo cast aside frustration from earlier in the day to win the Motul Pole Award in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) qualifying. The talented Dutch driver set an LMP3 track record in the process.

Van Berlo’s top lap of 1:15.517 (121.075 mph) came after the checkered flag and edged Malthe Jakobsen by a scant 0.108 seconds. It put the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier JS P320 that van Berlo shares with Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga on the LMP3 pole for Saturday’s race and, maybe more importantly, trims the No. 74’s deficit to 74 points in arrears of the No. 54 CORE autosport Ligier.

Van Berlo was visibly distraught earlier Friday when his chance to win the Porsche Carrera Cup North America championship ended with an early exit in that race. He knew that dwelling on that would do no good when it was time to qualify in LMP3.

“This morning was really disappointing, but at the end of the day you’ve got to move on,” van Berlo said. “You can’t really change what happens in the past. Even though I’m still really disappointed about what happened this morning, it is what it is. At the end today, we want to win the championship in LMP3 so I’ve got to change my mind and move on and get the car on pole and score good points. And that’s what we did.”

The No. 33 Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier that Jakobsen shares with Joao Barbosa and Nico Pino will start second. The No. 54 CORE Ligier, with co-drivers Jon Bennett, Colin Braun and George Kurtz earned the fifth starting spot in the eight-car class. The No. 54 still clinches the LMP3 title by finishing fourth or better on Saturday, but van Berlo said the No. 74 team isn’t giving up.

“At the end of the day, you just want to win Petit and that’s how you get the most points,” he said. “For me, tomorrow is just about being at the front of the pack in the final hour.”

Hawksworth Puts No. 14 Lexus On GTD PRO Pole

The late Al Davis, founder of the Oakland, ne Los Angeles, ne Oakland and now Las Vegas Raiders is famous for the mantra he laid out to his coaches and players: Just win baby.

While it’s highly doubtful Jack Hawksworth could pick the late Mr. Davis out of a lineup (let alone George Blanda, Ken Stabler or Derek Carr), he nevertheless would appreciate Davis’ sentiments. After all, with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) championship all but secured by the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, the best Hawksworth and the Vasser Sullivan Racing squad can do is finish runner-up in the points. And the best way to do that will be to win Saturday’s season finale.

Hawksworth took the first step toward that goal Friday, hustling the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 around Michelin Raceway in a time of 1 minute, 18.835 seconds (115.988 mph) to claim the Motul Pole Award ahead of the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Alex Riberas.

“We rolled off the trailer fast yesterday and have had a really solid weekend,” said Hawksworth. “The boys have done a good job and it was just up to me to put a good lap together. It’s good to start up front. You can stay out of the mess on the first lap and then be in a good position to score some points. But regardless of points, this is a race you really want to win.”

Hawksworth is keen not only to win the Motul Petit Le Mans and claim second spot in the GTD PRO standings, but to beat their closest and highly respected rival in the bargain.

“We have a lot of respect for Corvette (Racing),” he said. “Beating them for second in the championship would be a good way to end the year, and the best way to do that will be to win the race.”

For their part, Corvette will start fifth on the GTD PRO grid after Antonio Garcia recorded a lap of 1:19.444 in the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD and will take the green flag with the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin, the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 and the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 between them and the pole sitter. Any hope that Garcia would challenge Hawksworth for the Motul Pole Award was dashed when he encountered slower cars on his qualifying run.

“My lap was decent but I feel like I had a tiny bit more,” he said. “It was difficult to put together with how the car behaved and how traffic was. Traffic interaction wasn’t great and that killed a little momentum. That’s the same for everyone.”

Snow Storms To GTD Pole

Madison Snow laid down a marker lap midway through qualifying, one none of his GT Daytona (GTD) competitors could eclipse – let alone come close to matching. Nevertheless, Snow put an exclamation point on the session with an even better lap in the closing moments of the session, finishing with a 1:19.118 (115.573 mph) in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 to claim the class pole. Together with co-drivers Bryan Sellers and Erik Johansson, Snow will go for the team’s third win of 2022 on Saturday.

“We were good when we showed up in the Paul Miller car,” said Snow, “and we stayed at the top of the time sheets throughout practice. So we knew we had something good and it was just a case of not messing it up, which made me kind of nervous. This is the team’s home track so, obviously, we want to do well here.

“My third lap was pretty good,” he continued, “and in the middle of the session I wanted to come in to pit lane because I didn’t think I could replicate it. I kept asking the team, ‘Should I come in? Should I come in?’ They said, ‘Stay out.’ So I went for another lap and cleaned up a couple of little things from the earlier lap.”

Snow’s final time was nearly four-tenths of a second quicker than second-fastest qualifier Robert Megennis in the No. 39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3. Jaden Conwright confirmed the Lamborghini’s pace by posting the third-fastest time in the No. 42 NTE/SSR Huracán.

The WeatherTech Championship GTD title remains very much up for grabs following qualifying. The points-leading No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 qualified fourth in the hands of Roman De Angelis, two spots better than the closest rival, the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Stevan McAleer. The No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (third in points) will start ninth, two spots behind the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (fourth in points).

Forty-three cars are entered across the five classes competing at Road Atlanta. NBC’s live race coverage runs from noon-3 p.m. ET Saturday. USA Network will pick up the coverage at 7 p.m. through the checkered flag. Peacock and IMSA Radio have flag-to-flag coverage starting at noon.