Long Beach IMSA: Brilliant Bourdais takes record-breaking pole

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.

That last-gasp effort from Lynn deposed Blomqvist who nonetheless can be proud to have broken up the all-Cadillac party with a car whose characteristics don’t suit the nature of Long Beach layout and track surface.

Derani will roll off fourth ahead of Vautier and Albuquerque

Jordan Taylor delivered the fastest time in a thrilling GT qualifying session, the sole Corvette C8.R clocking a 1min18.048sec lap on its final tour of the 1.968-mile circuit. That was enough to leave him 0.067sec clear of Connor De Phillippi in the ‘works’ Rahal Letterman Lanigan BMW M4 and 0.125sec faster than the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Mathieu Jaminet.

Ross Gunn, FP1 pacesetter for Heart of Racing, slotted into fourth in the Aston Martin Vantage, just ahead of the fastest GTD cars – a pair of BMW M4s. Madison Snow of Paul Miller Racing edged Robby Foley of Turner Motorsports by just over a tenth of a second.

Next up was the fastest of the Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC Fs, Jack Hawksworth’s GTD Pro entry, while Mike Skeen was third fastest GTD, seventh overall in GT, in the quickest Mercedes AMG GT3, the Team Korthoff Motorsports car.

Cla	Driver	Class	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Renger van der Zande Sébastien Bourdais	DPi	Cadillac DPi	6	1'09.472
2	Earl Bamber Alex Lynn	DPi	Cadillac DPi	7	1'09.833	0.361
3	Oliver Jarvis Tom Blomqvist	DPi	Acura DPi	10	1'09.939	0.467
4	Pipo Derani Tristan Nunez	DPi	Cadillac DPi	5	1'10.001	0.529
5	Tristan Vautier Richard Westbrook	DPi	Cadillac DPi	11	1'10.376	0.904
6	Ricky Taylor Filipe Albuquerque	DPi	Acura DPi	8	1'10.576	1.104
7	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	GTD PRO	Corvette C8.R GTD	12	1'18.048	8.576
8	Connor de Phillippi John Edwards	GTD PRO	BMW M4 GT3	6	1'18.115	8.643
9	Matt Campbell Mathieu Jaminet	GTD PRO	Porsche 911 GT3 R	7	1'18.173	8.701
10	Ross Gunn Alex Riberas	GTD PRO	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	8	1'18.437	8.965
11	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow	GTD	BMW M4 GT3	10	1'18.487	9.015
12	Robby Foley Bill Auberlen	GTD	BMW M4 GT3	9	1'18.599	9.127
13	Jack Hawksworth Ben Barnicoat	GTD PRO	Lexus RC F GT3	11	1'18.627	9.155
14	Mike Skeen Stevan McAleer	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	10	1'18.918	9.446
15	Jon Miller Paul Holton	GTD	McLaren 720S GT3	11	1'18.932	9.460
16	Russell Ward Philip Ellis	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	8	1'18.973	9.501
17	Mario Farnbacher Marc Miller	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	11	1'19.146	9.674
18	Roman De Angelis Maxime Martin	GTD	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	10	1'19.181	9.709
19	Frankie Montecalvo Aaron Telitz	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	12	1'19.181	9.709
20	Ryan Eversley Aidan Read	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	12	1'19.366	9.894
21	Brendan Iribe Frederik Schandorff	GTD	McLaren 720S GT3	9	1'19.385	9.913
22	Robert Megennis Jeff Westphal	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	9	1'19.742	10.270
23	Cooper MacNeil Raffaele Marciello	GTD PRO	Mercedes-AMG GT3	12	1'19.743	10.271
24	Ryan Hardwick Jan Heylen	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	12	1'20.072	10.600
25	Rob Ferriol Katherine Legge	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	10	1'21.079	11.607
26	Kyle Washington James Sofronas	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	11	1'23.938	14.466
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