Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Nick Yelloly won the pole Friday (April 17) for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach with a lap at 71.626 seconds (98.914 mph). It is Yelloly’s first pole of the year and the team’s second. The No. 93 team inherited the pole in Daytona after Action Express Racing’s times were disallowed.
“We knew that we had a great car already in free practice. It was just about executing as best as I could [during the lap],” Yelloly told NBC Sports’ Matt Yocum. “I’ve always been a fan of street courses. I’m a fan of flirting with the walls and getting away and today was great.”
Yelloly won the pole by .03 seconds over BMW M Team WRT’s Marco Wittmann, who was fastest in Practice No. 2. Wayne Taylor Racing’s Louis Deletraz will start third, followed by Action Express Racing’s Jack Aitken and Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Julien Andlauer. All 10 GTP cars that took time were within a second of Yelloly’s pole time.
For GTP cars, Long Beach’s bumpy surface can throw things up in the air. While Andlauer was fastest in his Porsche early on, the GTPs primarily developed in the United States came to the front.
Deletraz put his Cadillac on top early on in the session, then was overtaken by Yelloly. Yelloly, running the colors of ConocoPhillips’ 76 this weekend, set what ultimately ended up being the pole just before the halfway point of the session.
The bumps caught a lot of drivers out all day. The 15-minute qualifying session saw nearly a half-dozen trips to the runoff in turns 1, 6 and 9. Despite wall contact exiting turn 8 for JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Tijmen van der Helm, there were no red flags.
One team failed to take time in the session. That was Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s No. 60 Acura. In Practice No. 2 earlier Friday, Colin Braun crashed his Acura ARX-06 into the tires in turn 8.
The Acura suffered tub damage in the crash that required significant repairs. They were unable to fix it in time and will start 11th Saturday.
During GTD practice earlier in the day, Vasser Sullivan’s Lexuses for Frankie Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz were fastest in class. However, they were forced to sit out the first five minutes of the session because they failed to perform a mandatory torque offset sensor test.
That left Montecalvo and Telitz’s teammate Benjamin Pedersen, along with Pfaff Motorsports’ new Lamborghini Temerario GT3 for Zachary Vanier, very little margin for error. There were no stoppages during the session that would have further cut into their on-track time.
Early on, 13 Autosport’s Orey Fidani was quickest in his Corvette. Attempting to push led him to wipe out exiting the hairpin. He didn’t hit anything and decided to go back to the pits for a set of fresh tires. However, he drove against traffic in an attempt to use the back entrance into the pits. The officials didn’t like this and parked him for that.
The lead in the session swapped around from Fidani to Manny Franco, then Russell Ward. However, it was Wayne Taylor Racing’s Danny Formal that was on fire.
He put himself on top of the charts with a 80-second lap, then steadily improved that time. Eventually, Formal set a lap at 78.626 seconds (90.107 mph) with a little more than four minutes to go.
From there, the rest of the field took their shots at Formal’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. Most of them couldn’t do anything with him.
On the very last lap of the session, Montecalvo set a lap at 78.411 seconds (90.355 mph). Despite missing the first five minutes of the session, that was enough for him to take the class pole.
That is until post-qualifying inspection. Montecalvo’s Lexus measured too low. As a result, the pole position was stripped and the No. 89 will have to start at the rear of the field.
As a result, the pole went to DXDT Racing’s Robert Wickens, who is making his season debut this weekend, with a lap at 90.181 mph in his Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. He was .064 seconds faster than Formal. The Heart of Racing’s Spencer Pumpelly will start third despite going into the runoff at turn 9 at one point in the session. Winward Racing’s Russell Ward starts fourth, while Turner Motorsport’s Patrick Gallagher is fifth.
There were no red flags during the session, but there was some trouble to be had. In addition to Fidani’s spin and penalty, Inception Racing’s Brendan Iribe went wide exiting turn 9 and clipped the tire barrier.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach Qualifying Results
The IMSA Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is scheduled to go green at 4:05 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon. The race will air live on NBC starting at 4 p.m. ET. Coverage will be simulcast on Peacock.
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.