The Heart of Racing’s Ross Gunn set a lap at 104.884 mph Friday (July 21) around Lime Rock Park’s 1.474-mile circuit to win the pole for Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix. The lap is a new track record for GT3 cars and only a little than a half-second slower than the GTE lap record.
“Super-special to be on pole, particularly at a track like [Lime Rock] where it is very tricky to pass,” Gunn said in a press conference. “It was a bit unexpected. We struggled a bit in practice, but we made a couple of setup changes that really helped.”
Gunn’s lap was .191 seconds faster than VasserSullivan’s Jack Hawksworth. Corvette Racing’s Antonio Garcia will start third, followed by Daniel Juncadella and Patrick Pilet.
In GTD, the high tire wear in play at Lime Rock led teams to conserve their rubber. Team Korthoff Motorsports’ Mike Skeen chose to wait out a number of the other teams.
Once he went out, he knew that he had roughly three good laps on the tires before the degradation would take its toll. On his third lap at speed, Skeen set a lap at 103.728 mph to put himself at the top of the class. A number of contenders took their shots at it, but the lap held up to give Skeen the GTD pole.
Skeen’s lap was a mere seven-thousandths of a second faster than the McLaren of Inception Racing’s Frederick Schandorff. US RaceTronics’ Misha Goikhberg will start third in his Lamborghini, then The Heart of Racing’s Roman DeAngelis. VasserSullivan’s Frankie Montecalvo will start fifth.
Unusually, the two GTD classes really did not mix Friday. All five GTD Pro teams were able to outqualify the GTD cars.
That said, it was pretty close on the speed charts. The entire GTD Pro class was separated by less than half a second. The top 13 teams were within a second of Gunn’s pole time.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix Qualifying Results
The FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix is scheduled to go green at 12:10 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon. The race will air live on USA Network and on Peacock starting at Noon ET.
About the author
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.