Michelin Pilot Challenge teams had to qualify bright and early Saturday morning (Aug. 3) at Road America. Despite the early wake up call, Motorsports In Action’s Jesse Lazare continued his hot runs against the clock. Lazare turned in a lap at 108.882 mph to win the pole for the Road America 120. It is Lazare’s fourth pole of the season.
Lazare won the pole by .598 seconds over Hattori Motorsports’ Jaden Conwright. Rennsport One’s Trent Hindman will start third in his Porsche, then Gavin Sanders, who is making his series debut in the McCumbee-McAleer Racing Ford Mustang GT4. TeamTGM’s Paul Holton will start fifth.
Early on, Hindman was quickest in his Porsche on his first lap. However, Lazare was fastest in both practice sessions on Friday in his McLaren and didn’t waste too much time putting himself at the top of the chart.
From there, Lazare continued to improve his time. The pole lap came with a little more than two minutes to go and is 1.08 seconds faster than the previous Grand Sport class lap record, set last year by Robert Megennis.
For NASCAR fans, Ross Chastain did not qualify his car. His teammate, Ken Fukuda, qualified the Skip Barber Racing Aston Martin 17th in Grand Sport, 21st overall.
In TCR, the sheer size of Road America meant that it took quite a while for drivers to set decent times. It was nearly halfway through the session before the majority of drivers set a lap at speed.
Bryan Herta Autosport’s Taylor Hagler was quickest at the halfway point of the session before she was overtaken by Montreal Motorsports Group’s Daijiro Yoshihara.
Victor Gonzalez Racing Team’s Morgan Burkhard was the last driver in class to set an official time. That lap put him on the provisional pole in his Hyundai. Despite improving on his next lap, Yoshihara took the provisional pole back with less than five minutes remaining with a lap at 106.318 mph.
The rest of the field took shots at Yoshihara’s time. At the time it was set, it had the fastest time in all three sectors. While two of the sector times were beaten, Yoshihara’s lap held up to win the pole.
Yoshihara’s lap, which was a class lap record for Road America, was .441 seconds faster than Bryan Herta Autosport’s Mason Filippi. Teammate Harry Gottsacker will start third, then Burkhard and Hagler.
The session ended a couple of minutes early after Jon Brel went off-course in turn 8 after wheel-to-wheel contact with JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Chris Miller and drew a red flag. There was not enough time remaining to retrieve Brel’s car and reset everything so that drivers could go back out.
Miller was assigned blame for the incident by IMSA officials and lost his best time. Brel’s car was damaged enough that they were forced to withdraw from the race.
IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Road America 120 Qualifying Results
The Road America 120 is scheduled to go green at 2:45 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon. Coverage from Elkhart Lake, Wis. will start at 2:40 p.m. ET on Peacock.
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.
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