Albuquerque Leads Acura Front Row Lockout in Long Beach

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Filipe Albuquerque has claimed pole for Saturday’s Acura Grand Prix at Long Beach following a hard-fought qualifying session for the third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.

Albuquerque outpaced fellow Acura GTP driver Tom Blomqvist thanks to a series of late-session flyers, culminating with a 1:09.909 lap time in the No. 10 Acura ARX-06.

It was 0.674 seconds quicker than Blomqvist’s 1:10.583 lap time that saw the two drivers exchange provisional pole throughout the 20-minute session.

Sebastien Bourdais made a late-session improvement to third in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, followed by the No. 25 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 of Nick Yelloly in fourth.

Augusto Farfus, also in his Long Beach debut, completed the top-five in the sister BMW, with Nick Tandy sixth in the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963.

The GTP class championship-leading No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac will roll off seventh, followed by the No. 7 Porsche of Felipe Nasr, who brought up the rear of the class field.

Marco Sorensen powered his way to the pole in GTD, outpacing the five GTD Pro class entries in the process.

The Heart of Racing driver recorded a best lap of 1:17.811 in the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 to edge out the GTD Pro pole-sitting No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth by 0.006 seconds.

Both times were new qualifying track records for their respective classes.

Ross Gunn qualified the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin third among the GTs and second in GTD Pro, followed by the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Patrick Pilet.

The No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD of Antonio Garcia completed the top-five.

Frankie Montecalvo put the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus second in GTD, followed by Madison Snow, who failed to score his third consecutive Long Beach class pole.

The 15-minute GT session came to a dramatic early end with two minutes to go when Ashton Harrison hit the Turn 8 wall in the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports with WTR Andretti Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 before coming to rest and briefly catching fire.

It was followed moments later with an even heavier impact in the same corner by PJ Hyett’s No. 80 AO Racing Porsche, which sustained extensive damage.

Both drivers climbed from their cars under their own power.

The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach gets underway Saturday at 2:15 p.m. PT (5:15 p.m. ET) with live coverage on USA Network, Peacock and on IMSA Radio.

RESULTS: Qualifying

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John