Blomqvist Scores Back-To-Back Poles North Of The Border, Acura Locks Out Front Row

Tom Blomqvist put the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06 on the pole for Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (the former Mosport circuit), to lead an all-Acura front row.

Blomqvist, who won the pole with a record lap last year, will aim to convert pole into a second win of the season – and first “unencumbered win”, good fortune willing – alongside co-driver Colin Braun who won overall here in 2018 and in LMP2 last year.

Five minutes into the 20-minute GTP qualifying session, championship leader Pipo Derani set the early benchmark with a best lap of 1:06.502, which was then surpassed by Ricky Taylor on a 1:05.734, the fastest lap of the weekend.

Two minutes passed, and Blomqvist put it all together as he leapt to the top with a 1:05.653, just over a second short of the DPi lap record he established last year – and 81 milliseconds ahead of Taylor’s mark.

With Michelin tyres at a premium the action died down in the second half of the session, and Blomqvist secured his fifth career IMSA pole position – his second of the year, and first since the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque will line up alongside them in the #10 Konica Minolta Acura from Wayne Taylor Racing, who’ll hope to get their first win of a star-crossed 2023 season.

Derani and Alexander Sims will start third in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R. The Action Express Racing team have a 70-point lead in the GTP Championship standings after qualifying. On the outside of an all-Cadillac second row is the #01 of defending race winners Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande.

Felipe Nasr qualified fifth in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963, ahead of Augusto Farfus in the #24 BMW M Team RLL Hybrid V8. Watkins Glen winner Nick Yelloly could only manage seventh-quickest in the #25 BMW.

There’s encouraging developments from Porsche customer JDC Miller Motorsports – Mike Rockenfeller qualified off the bottom of the board in the #5 “Banana Boat”, four-tenths up on Mathieu Jaminet in the #6 Penske Porsche.

LMP3 points leaders Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga inherited the pole position at Watkins Glen due to the deluge of rain that scrapped qualifying. But this time, Robinson earned his right to start up front in the #74 Riley Ligier JS P320 – as he and Fraga pursue their third consecutive class win of 2023.

The gentleman driver from Texas jumped to the top of the leaderboard in the opening minutes with a 1:13.261, and kept improving for several laps, putting the top spot out of reach of his peers with a 1:12.946 to secure his fifth career pole.

Qualifying second was the all-Canadian combination of Orey Fidani and his golden yellow #13 AWA Duquiene D08, ahead of the returning Ari Balogh, back aboard his #30 Jr III Racing Ligier – which has been quick all weekend in the hands of his co-driver Garett Grist.

Worth mentioning the debuting Antoine Comeau – the Montreal native who has improved rapidly since Practice 1 and qualified off the bottom of the order in the #4 Ave Motorsports Ligier.

The #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat continued its awesome form in 2023. Hawksworth, who set the outright GTD course record around Mosport in the morning practice session, backed it up with a time of 1:15.029 – good enough to win his second pole of the season (after Long Beach) and his tenth career pole.

Hawksworth and Barnicoat will look to extend their whopping 116 point lead in the standings in tomorrow’s race – and continue their perfect run of podium finishes in the GTD Pro category.

Sharing the front row with them is the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon). Gounon improved to a 1:15.103 with less than three minutes left in GTD qualifying – short of displacing Hawksworth by 0.074 seconds.

The second row of the combined GTD grid will feature the two Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3s, with the GTD Pro #23 of Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas on the inside, and the GTD pole-winning #27 of Marco Sørensen and local hero Roman de Angelis to the outside.

De Angelis, a native of Windsor, Ontario, scored his second career IMSA class pole position with a time of 1:15.478, enough to take the top spot from the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Frankie Montecalvo.

This is the second GTD pole of the year for the #27 Aston Martin – Sørensen put the car on pole for Long Beach. De Angelis won in GTD last year with Maxime Martin as his co-driver and will be going for two class wins in a row.

Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz will start alongside the #3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD of Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor, who qualified fourth in GTD Pro, just 16 milliseconds slower than De Angelis.

Behind them is the #9 Porsche 911 GT3 R of local fan favourite – and last year’s GTD Pro class-winning team – Pfaff Motorsports. Klaus Bachler qualified ahead of GTD championship leader Madison Snow in the #1 Paul Miller Motorsports BMW M4 GT3, Mikaël Grenier in the #32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes, and Patrick Gallagher in the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW.

Brendan Iribe was the fastest Bronze-rated driver in GTD aboard the #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 EVO.

QUALIFYING RESULTS >>

Tomorrow’s two hour and 40 minute race goes green at 12:05 PM EDT (local time) – or, in another manner of speaking, with 25 minutes to go in the WEC 6 Hours of Monza which begins earlier in the day.

Images courtesy of IMSA