MSR Acura rockets ahead to take Watkins Glen 6 Hour pole

With a new GTP course record, Renger van der Zande and Acura Meyer Shank Racing won the pole for the Sahlen's Six Hours of the Glen. It'll be van der Zande, Nick Yelloly and rookie Kakunoshin 'Kaku' Ohta starting up front in the red No. 93 Acura ARX-06, after the Dutch driver obliterated the 2024 lap record with a best time of 1m31.558s on his first flying lap.

Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti will start second in the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R; Aitken had two quick laps towards the end, but his best lap of 1m31.845s was still less than 0.3s away from unseating the No. 93 Acura for pole.

The No. 60 MSR Acura of Colin Braun qualified third, as the top three surpassed Louis Deletraz's previous course record when he won the pole in an Acura last year.

Now with Cadillacs, the blue No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R of Ricky Taylor was fourth, followed by Deletraz in the silver No. 40 car in fifth.

The two Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8s set the early pace in the 15-minute GTP qualifying session, but the best times from Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor would tumble down to sixth and seventh in the final classification.

Mathieu Jaminet was eighth-quickest in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, 1.7s off the top. Ross Gunn was a surprising ninth in the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie – the still-fresh V12 Valkyrie outqualified the other three Porsche 963s, including the championship-leading No. 7 Penske Porsche of Felipe Nasr down in tenth.

Romain Grosjean was 11th in the returning No. 63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63, within 2s of the top time.

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Hot off the heels of their Le Mans class win in LMP2 Pro-Am, PJ Hyett, AO Racing and "Spike" the LMP2 Dragon blew away the competition in LMP2 qualifying. Hyett won the LMP2 pole position, setting a 1m35.878s on his second flying lap in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA 07-Gibson to put the top spot out of reach from TDS Racing and Steven Thomas.

Remarkably, it's Hyett's first pole of the season in IMSA – and even more remarkably, it happened after an engine failure toward the end of the second practice session and then a successful engine change in just four hours of frenetic work.

Thomas would get within 0.2s of Hyett but would settle for second-fastest; he'll line up ahead of the two United Autosports cars, the No. 22 of Daniel Goldburg in third and the No. 2 of Nick Boulle in fourth.

Era Motorsports' Tobias Lutke was a surprising fifth in the No. 18 ahead of Jeremy Clarke in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition car.

Jake Galstad/IMSA

Pfaff Motorsports' red plaid No. 9 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 has been quickest so far in GTD PRO in every session, up to and including Andrea Caldarelli's pole-winning effort today. The Italian did just enough to displace Dan Harper from provisional pole with his first flying lap of 1m44.718s. That would have been enough for Caldarelli to snag the top spot, but he found further improvements every time he circulated, eventually landing with a 1m44.595s, to give Pfaff its first pole as a Lamborghini customer team.

Harper in the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO tried one more push with a new set of tires, but he couldn't improve from his 1m44.737s and held on to his outside front-row start on the GT grid.

Nicky Catsburg qualified third in the No. 4 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, barely edging out the white No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 of Albert Costa in fourth. Aaron Telitz qualified fifth in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3, ahead of the No. 3 Corvette of Alexander Sims; GTD PRO points leader Klaus Bachler was only ninth in the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, out of ten cars.

Zacharie Robichon gave the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 its first GTD pole of the season. Robichon was the first GT driver to eclipse the 1m45s barrier this weekend when he set a 1m44.788s halfway through the session. Only Alec Udell in the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette eclipsed the 1m45s barrier with him, qualifying in second place.

Daniel Morad and Russell Ward will make up an all-Mercedes second row in GTD; Morad was third in the No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, ahead of GTD Championship leader Ward in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG.

Parker Thompson in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus, Lorenzo Patrese in the No. 47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari and Alessandro Pier Guidi in the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari followed, in fifth through seventh.

Of note, Adam Adelson was 16th in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche, carrying the Chip Hart Racing livery from "F1: The Movie" ahead of its release next week.

The Sahlen's Six Hours of the Glen starts Sunday at 12:10 p.m. ET (local time), airing in the United States live on NBC and Peacock, and in over 200 countries on the official IMSA YouTube channel and IMSA.TV.

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