Bourdais Storms to Mid-Ohio Pole for Ganassi, Cadillac

Photo: Rick Dole/IMSA

Sebastien Bourdais has claimed his third IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole of the season for Sunday’s Lexus Grand Prix at Mid-Ohio following a damp DPi and LMP2 qualifying session.

The Frenchman reeled off a best lap of 1:10.439 in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R to edge out the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 of Filipe Albuquerque by 0.222 seconds.

Oliver Jarvis qualified third in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura DPi, followed by the No. 02 CGR Cadillac of Alex Lynn and the No. 31 Action Express Racing entry of Tristan Nunez. 

Tristan Vautier brought up the rear of the six-car DPi field.

LMP2 class pole went to Patrick Kelly in the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson, in a lockout of the front row for the Bobby Oergel-led team.

Kelly completed a best lap of 1:14.484 to edge out teammate Steven Thomas by 0.961 seconds for his first WeatherTech Championship pole of the season.

Henrik Hedman, in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Oreca, qualified third in class ahead of class championship leader Dwight Merriman in the No. 18 Era Motorsport entry in fourth.

Jarett Andretti scored his first career pole in LMP3 in his No. 36 Andretti Autosport Ligier JS P320 Nissan.

Andretti stormed to a best lap of 1:17.104 to edge out series debutant Josh Sarchet in the No. 58 MLT Motorsport Ligier by 0.337 seconds.

Dan Goldburg qualified third in the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports Ligier.

Snow Takes Paul Miller Racing to GTD Pole

Madison Snow scored GTD class pole honors for Paul Miller Racing and BMW in an ever-improving session for the production-based class.

Snow reeled off a 1:20.525 time in the No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 on his final flying lap to edge out a last-lap improvement by the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Stevan McAleer by two-tenths.

It marked Snow’s second pole in the last three races after taking top qualifying honors at Long Beach. Snow and co-driver Bryan Sellers drove to victory in that race.

Roman De Angelis will start third in class in the No. 27 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3, followed by the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley in fourth.

Russell Ward completed the top-five in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes, ahead of the quickest Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Frankie Montecalvo in sixth.

The No. 17 Lexus, making a cameo appearance with Richard Heistand and Jack Hawksworth, will start seventh in class after an early spin in qualifying by the Bronze-rated driver.

GTD competitors fought changing track conditions after initially starting on a damp track due to rain. Lightning in the area initially delayed the start of the session by roughly 35 minutes.

The Lexus Grand Prix at Mid-Ohio gets underway Sunday at 2:05 p.m. ET with live coverage on USA Network and 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