At the start of the session, Tom Blomqvist went straight on at Turn 1 in his efforts to get the Acura ARX-05 of Meyer Shank Racing onto the front row, and Filipe Albuquerque slid along the wall exiting Turn 5 as he tried extracting the max from the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura. They were both making great efforts, but were on the back foot as everyone was shooting at Pipo Derani in the Action Express Racing Cadillac, whose top effort, a 1min10.001sec, was a new DPi qualifying record for the 1.968-mile track.
That record lasted for only minutes however, as the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillacs were on the prowl. Sure enough, Sebastien Bourdais – who won the Grand Prix of Long Beach three times in his open-wheel career – delivered a sensational 69.472sec to eclipse Derani’s time by over half a second. In the #02 Ganassi entry, IMSA rookie Alex Lynn was also seriously impressive in his first weekend at Long Beach, eventually finishing up 0.361sec behind Bourdais.
