Bell Grabs Pole in Shortened Qualifying Session

Jaxon Bell notched his second pole of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge season for Friday’s Fox Factory 120 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, breaking a seven-year GS qualifying track record.

Bell drove the No. 23 Koch-Copeland Motorsports Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 to pole with a 1:25.500 lap. He paced Paul Holton in the No. 46 Team TGM Ford Mustang GT4 by 0.179 seconds. 

The No. 44 Ibiza Farm Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4 piloted by Moisey Uretsky posted the third best time after the car topped the second practice session. Uretsky and co-driver Michael Cooper qualified the best of GS teams mathematically in the title fight.

Caio Chaves in the No. 54 Panam Motorsport Toyota crashed at Turn 5 with under three minutes to go to end the session early.

The No. 67 BSI Racing Toyota entry was given a post-qualifying penalty for touching the car during the session and lost all qualifying laps. 

Karl Wittmer grabbed the fourth pole of the season for the No. 93 MMG Honda Civic FL5 TCR with a 1:26.369 lap. Co-driver LP Montour was in the car for the team’s three previous pole positions.

It was Honda’s seventh pole out of the ten races in TCR this season.

Rocco Pasquarella ended the session 0.322 seconds behind Wittmer in second to make it an all-Honda front row for Friday. Bryan Morris rounded out the top three in the class championship-leading No. 33 Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai Elantra N TCR.

The Fox Factory 120 takes the green flag on Friday at 11:40 a.m. EST with live streaming coverage on Peacock as well as IMSA’s YouTube channel, commercial free courtesy of Michelin. 

RESULTS: Qualifying