Detroit Friday Notebook

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

***Nick Yelloly scored his first career IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole in a front row sweep for Acura Meyer Shank Racing. It marked the first pole for MSR since Canadian Tire Motorsport Park 2013, which was also the last time a GTP pole winner went on to win the race.

***Additionally, the last time the Ohio-based team locked out the front row in a top-class IMSA race was the 2008 Rolex 24 at Daytona.

***Yelloly said: “It’s the best place to start at any street circuit. Having been on pole at other street circuits, it usually makes your life quite a bit easier… To get my first pole in IMSA and the my first pole for Acura and the team. The team has been working so hard to get everything right. The program is so new; we all got together in November last year. We’re going from strength to strength.”

***The top six in GTP qualifying, which saw IMSA’s revised Balance of Performance on display, were separated by 0.864 seconds.

***Priaulx, meanwhile, claimed his second career IMSA pole in GTD Pro, coming in Ford’s backyard. “[The] Flat Rock Assembly Plant is just down the road, so to earn pole position here with Mustang GT3 is amazing,” he said. “I’m super happy. We’ve had a good season, though it’s been challenging in places. So, I’m really happy to get pole here, and it gives us all the confidence for tomorrow.”

***The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth, which initially qualified third in class, has been moved to the rear of the starting field due to exceeding the minimum ride height. It has promoted the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Neil Verhgan to a third place starting position for Saturday’s 100-minute race.

***Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports qualifying drivers Tommy Milner and Antonio Garcia, meanwhile, were lamenting their fifth and eighth quickest qualifying times in class after topping the time charts in both practice sessions. The GTD Pro session was curtailed with an accident by the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 of Rasmus Lindh with six minutes to go.

***Milner said: “I think the smart thing for me is to not say what my plan is from now on. But certainly we were compromised as were many other cars by a car that had clear track that did not want to continue to qualify the car, just waiting for something to happen. I don’t know what exactly. Yeah, a lot of us paid the penalty for it. It’s not the first time that car has done stuff like that. So, yeah, just going forward we’ve done something different in the past in qualifying and it’s paid off massively. And so I think from now on, we’ll just do something different than what most other people do and let us determine our own destiny and not leave it to the hands of incompetent drivers.”

***Five cars: the Nos. 10 and 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.Rs, No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R and No. 7 Penske Porsche 963, all lost their fastest qualifying laps due to causing red flags in practice. Two of the instances (No. 3 Corvette and No. 7 Porsche) were due to the cars dropping debris on track that led to the red flags.

***Lindh has replaced Giacomo Altoe in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari due to “personal reasons” according to a team statement, which has indicated the Italian driver will return for the next sprint round at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Lindh has previously driven for the Elton Julian-led team in LMP2 competition and and was also in the team’s Ferrari at last year’s Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

***Hawksworth has returned to the GTD Pro ranks for the first time since last year’s season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans, with the former class champion subbing for the still-recovering Ben Barnicoat, who was ruled out of the 24 Hours of Le Mans this week, where Hawksworth will also serve as a sub for Barnicoat. It’s believed Barnicoat could be ready to return to action for the next WeatherTech Championship round at Watkins Glen.

***Porsche Penske Motorsport managing director Jonathan Diuguid has reprised his role as race strategist for Will Power in Sunday’s NTT IndyCar Series race in Detroit after getting the late call-up for that position in last weekend’s Indianapolis 500. Porsche Penske’s No. 6 car race engineer, Raul Prados, will also be pulling double duty this weekend, as he also remains Josef Newgarden’s race engineer.

***Team Penske has yet to announce permanent replacements for the staff that were fired in the build-up to the Indy 500, including the former IndyCar team president Tim Cindric, leaving it unclear if any of the Porsche Penske staff could be permanently transferred to the IndyCar side of the team.

***Eighteen of the 22 GTP drivers competing in Detroit this weekend will be taking part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, along with GTD Pro pilots Hawksworth, Nicky Catsburg and Klaus Bachler. The only four GTP drivers without Le Mans rides are Marco Wittmann, Philipp Eng, Tijmen van der Helm and Gianmaria Bruni.

***Detroit also marks the start of a busy stretch of racing for several IMSA drivers who are undertaking Le Mans, the Six Hours of The Glen and the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, all on consecutive weekends. The list includes: Catsburg, Bachler, Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, Colin Braun, Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell.

***There are a number of drivers, meanwhile, that are set to contest the three consecutive 24-hour races at Le Mans, Nürburgring and Spa. The Nürburgring 24, however, clashes with Watkins Glen this year.

***A deal that would have seen Jack Aitken make his NASCAR Cup Series debut in the upcoming race at Sonoma Raceway has been called off, reportedly after a media report from The Athletic surfaced linking the Spire Motorsports-run entry that would have been backed by Jim France.

***Kaku Ohta will return to the No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 for next month’s Six Hours of The Glen, having recently completed a successful test in the car with co-drivers van der Zande and Yelloly.

***Yelloly said: “It’s such a different kind of way to go racing compared to both in Japan and in Europe. But he did a stellar job as well with his speed and his racecraft already in Daytona. So, I’m sure he’d be much more settled, having done also LMP2 [at Sebring].”

***Michelin has been forced to increase the price of its race tires, effective June 15, due to U.S. President Trump’s 25 percent tariff imposed on products being imported from France.

***In a statement provided to competitors, Michelin said it will absorb a portion of the cost increases, with a surcharge of 7.5 percent being imposed on all Michelin Motorsports tires sold during race weekends and purchased through Jackson Motorsports at the race track.

***The statement read: “Michelin and IMSA have worked to minimize the impacts on teams and should the situation regarding the tariff be adjusted, we will act accordingly on the surcharge.”

***The first three of the four IMSA events this year has seen all-time record attendance levels according to IMSA President John Doonan, who revealed that the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona came “very close” to its 2024 record number but was hampered due to rain.

***Doonan, meanwhile, responded to the 10-turn, 1.645-mile Detroit downtown street course not being an “appropriate” course for GTP cars, when asked by a journalist on a recent media call.

***He said: “To bring it back downtown is realty unique. The pit lane’s unique. People could argue elements of the track are really tight. It’s the same for everybody. There’s elements of Long Beach when prototypes are going around the final corner at, I don’t know, right around 35 to 40 mph. It’s tough.”

***Doonan said IMSA will “continue” to look at which classes race at different venues but acknowledged that the 2026 WeatherTech Championship calendar has Detroit already confirmed, currently again for GTP and GTD Pro. “We’re continuing to look at it,” he added.

***Peacock’s coverage of the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic gets underway Saturday at 3:30 p.m. EST, with the NBC Sports team of Leigh Diffey and Calvin Fish in the booth and Kevin Lee and Brian Till on pit lane.

***IMSA Radio’s coverage, which will also be available on the international YouTube feed, will be anchored by John Hindhaugh, with Ryan Myrehn off on ABB FIA Formula E World Championship duty in Shanghai this weekend.

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