WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — The Heart of Racing’s Hannah Grisham set a lap at 107.520 mph with four minutes remaining in qualifying Friday afternoon (June 26). That lap held up to give Grisham the pole for Saturday’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge LP Building Solutions 120. It is her first career pole in her fifth career start.
“Our Aston Martin was amazing today,” Grisham told Frontstretch after the session. “Our engineer, Phil, has done an amazing job and so has the whole rest of the team. We’ve worked super hard to get here today.”
Grisham ended up .368 seconds ahead of KohR Motorsports’ Evan Slater in his best career qualifying effort. Panam Motorsport’s Caio Chaves will start third, then CarBahn Motorsports with Peregrine Racing’s Sean McAlister and Winward Racing’s Bryce Ward.
Turner Motorsport’s Dillon Machavern was fastest early on in his BMW. McAlister and Koch-Copeland Motorsports’ Ford Koch were able to overcome that.
For a time, it looked like 16-year-old Slater was going to snag his first career pole. But, with four minutes to go, Grisham set her quick lap, which included the fastest first sector of anyone.
From there, the remainder of the 29-car GS field tried their best, but no one could touch Grisham’s time. She will go down as the fourth woman to win a pole in series history (through a variety of name changes, Pilot Challenge goes all the way back to 1998, when it launched as the Motorola Cup).
In TCR, it took a little while for everyone to get to speed. Once they did, Bryan Herta Autosport’s Bryson Morris put his Hyundai on the provisional pole.
Morris was able to lead for more than half of the session. However, Montreal Motorsport Group’s Louis-Phillippe Montour was able to set a lap at 106.738 mph that was fastest in all three sectors to usurp him. The team is already coming off a big class win at Mid-Ohio three weeks ago and they’re keeping up their good form.
Montour was able to hold on from there to take the TCR pole. KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering’s Rocco Pasquarella will start second in his Honda, followed by Stallion Motorsports’ Raphael Reis. HART’s Tyler Chambers was fourth, while Morris had to settle for fifth.
IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge LP Building Solutions 120 Qualifying Results
The LP Building Solutions 120 is scheduled to go green Saturday at 1:05 p.m. ET. Coverage will begin at 1 p.m. ET on both the IMSA Official YouTube channel and Peacock.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email 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 Frontstretch 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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