Road Atlanta Friday Notebook

Photo: Porsche

***Tom Blomqvist gave the Acura ARX-06 its 15th pole in what is set to be the car’s last appearance in professional competition in Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans, in what ended up being a front row sweep for Acura Meyer Shank Racing.

***Blomqvist said: “Obviously it’s the last event, so… things like today go a long way for everyone, for the mood, putting smiles on people’s faces so late in the program. It’s fantastic. The last two events, obviously qualifying has been very good. It’s just nice to get out of the car and see everyone so happy. It hasn’t been the smoothest of weekends. We had something go wrong yesterday and the guys worked super hard late into the night to make sure everything was good for today.”

***Jack Aitken’s fourth place qualifying run has essentially seen him clinch the GTP drivers’ title, as he made a four-point gain over Laurin Heinrich, who qualified seventh in the No. 7 Penske Porsche 963, which unlike the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, remained on the same set of Medium compound Michelin tires for the entire session.

***Aitken commented: “What can I say? It’s been a long year and feels like we’ve got it done slightly early, which is a bit surreal after such a hard battle. I mean, I can only say I’m massive thank you to all the boys and girls here at Whelen Cadillac. And Cadillac put an awesome car out from the word go. We’ve had a lot of fun, and it means we can go out and race properly tomorrow, so going to enjoy that one too.”

***Heinrich said: “P7 is not what we expected after strong practice sessions with two times being the fastest yesterday, but that’s what we have to deal with. I mean, now we have only one goal and that’s simply to win the race. No other focus. On the one hand it’s a bit disappointing, but on the other hand it makes our life tomorrow hopefully a bit easier and I’m confident we have a better race car than what we had today.”

***There were also points swings in the three other classes, with the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 Gibson gaining six points on the No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR entry, which puts Tom Dillmann and Jeremy Clarke with a ten-point lead heading into the race.

***GTD Pro pole-sitter Neil Verhagen marginally closed the gap from 47 to 42 points on the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Nicky Catsburg and Tommy Milner, while GTD top-qualifier Philip Ellis extended his and Russell Ward’s lead from six to 15 points over the Turner Motorsport duo of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher.

***13 Autosport team owner/driver Orey Fidani believes the pressure is on Brendan Iribe in the fight for the Bob Akin Award and auto-invite to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans in LMGT3. Fidani re-took the lead, 30 points ahead of Inception Racing driver Iribe after his Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo was forced to pit for a powertrain spike in last month’s Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

***Fidani qualified one position ahead of Iribe, after Iribe’s two fastest laps in qualifying were taken away due to running into the back of the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Adam Adelson in qualifying and causing a red flag “There’s always a little bit of luck in racing,” Fidani told Sportscar365. “It comes and goes. Some days you get your luck, some days it goes the opposite way. For us in Indy, it couldn’t have been any better coming into this last race.”

***Fidani and co-drivers Matt Bell and Lars Kern will need to beat the No. 70 Ferrari, or finish directly behind him for the Canadian driver to win his third consecutive Akin Award. If Iribe is the highest-placed nominated Bronze Cup driver in the race and second position only ties, the cumulative season-long drive between the two drivers will be the tiebreaker, which would likely go to Fidani, who currently ha s 43-minute advantage over Iribe.

***Curb usage, which caught out the Inception entry at Indy, is a serious factor for all cars according to Fidani. “This is an issue and it is an issue here as well, trying to determine whether eating up that curb and having a little of PPU overage is better or trying to stay off the curbs and losing some minimum speeds,” he said. “With Corvette, we all share data amongst all the Corvettes.”

***Fidani confirmed a team management and engineering shakeup for next year. In addition to Braun’s departure as director of competition as he steps back from full-time racing, Andrew Wojteczko, the owner of the AWA team that Fidani purchased late last year, will no longer be team manager, but remain in a reduced capacity, while its data engineer Baptiste Viala, will be moving on and will be replaced by current Alpine Hypercar performance engineer Adrien Guyomard, who is on-site this weekend.

***FIA Formula 3 graduate and current Super Formula pilot Charlie Wurz, the son of former Formula 1 driver and two-time Le Mans winner Alex, tested JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 late last month, as part of the team’s preparation for this weekend. The 20-year-old is understood to be in the frame for one of the seats in a potential two-car effort next year.

***JDC-Miller team advisor Richard Westbrook told Sportscar365: “He’s kind of the profile that we like. He was teammates with Max Esterson in F3, and we know how well Max went in this car. When there was a chance to test him, we took it and he did a really good job. He’s definitely one that’s on our radar for next year.”

***Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle said they have enough 2025-spec Porsche parts to properly support a two-car JDC-Miller effort, should IMSA confirm that the Minnesota-based team will continue to run in the previous-gen configuration. “We are supportive to whatever IMSA’s decision,” said Kuratle. “We can support both ways and most of all we support the customers. If we have to re-order parts, we will re-order parts.”

***Kuratle confirmed there are no other prospects for customer 963s in the WeatherTech Championship, meaning the maximum GTP grid looks to be ten cars, should the second JDC-Miller car materialize.

***Renger van der Zande confirmed to Sportscar365 that he does not currently have a full-time GTP or Hypercar seat for next year, with the Dutchman likely to have a mix of one-off GTP/Hypercar and season-long LMP2 programs in both the WeatherTech Championship and in Europe.

***Van der Zande told Sportscar365: “I think I’ve got quite a lot to bring to race teams, especially in the prototype classes. A mix of Hypercar/GTP and LMP2 is fitting me pretty well.”

***Colin Braun, the other full-time MSR driver that has yet to confirm a 2027 program, is understood to have already secured a season-long WeatherTech Championship program that’s yet to be announced.

***Wright Motorsports team owner/driver Adelson told Sportscar365 that he intends to remain with the Porsche in GTD next year and has already decided on his co-driver, which will be announced at a later date.

***Callum Ilott, who has partnered Adelson this season in the No. 120 entry, is believed to be returning to the NTT IndyCar Series next year, and with at least one direct date clash, between the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and Arlington Grand Prix, the Briton is not expected to feature in the full season or Michelin Endurance Cup lineup.

***Chris Mies, who was confirmed on Friday to be joining Dollahite Racing’s lineup for next weekend’s Desder Indianapolis 8 Hour, said he’s been impressed with Ford Racing’s 125th anniversary liveries that pays homage to ‘Sweepstakes’, the company’s first ever race winner from 1901.

***Mies told Sportscar365: “There’s some history behind and we had the photo shoot with the old car and our current cars. It’s pretty cool to see where it all comes from and where it is now.”

***The only issue Mies has faced is that his special firesuit, replicating a turn-of-the-20th-century three-piece suit, turned out to be a bit too small. The German said: “The measurements were a bit mixed up, so unfortunately most likely I will not be able to use it in the race!”

***Wayne Taylor revealed that he’s taken on a management role with up-and-coming driver Nathan Stockwell, the 2026 CKNA Canadian National champion. The 11-year-old, who personally reached out to Taylor for career guidance, is a guest of Wayne Taylor Racing, along with his father, this weekend.

***MSR, which will be making its 401st, 402nd and final IMSA starts on Saturday, has racked up impressive numbers in its 22-year run in top-level North American sports car racing. having scored three championships, 21 wins, 80 podiums and 26 poles, while leading more than 5,200 laps and fielding entries for a total of 75 drivers.

***Eleven U.S. military veterans will wrap up their service with IMSA teams or through Operation Motorsport’s Motorsport Immersion program, this weekend. Nine veterans worked side-by-side with crews, hosted by teams this season, while two attended select events as photographers. In total, 31 U.S. and Canadian veterans were placed with professional motorsport teams in IMSA, SRO America, NASCAR Canada and FEL Radical Cup Canada.

***Both CrowdStrike and Fisher House have supported Operation Motorsport’s initiatives this year in supplying flights to the veterans participating in the program. Designed to last two years, the Motorsport Immersion program allows veterans the chance to regain the Team, Identity and Purpose they lost when leaving the military.

***Michelin was recently confirmed as the official tire partner for next month’s second annual CrowdStrike Veterans Race of Remembrance powered by AWS. Michelin will donate $100 to Operation Motorsport for every set of tires sold for the race, while also donating the official Friday test day to competitors, free of charge. The Nov. 8 enduro at Virginia International Raceway has been expanded to eight hours in length and is expected to see a significant grid boost with the added eligibility of Sebeco NP01 and Radical prototypes to the grid.

***Sportscar365 understands the final version of the 2030 converged top-class prototype regulations has been delayed until June 2027, instead of the original end-of-year target, with a draft version now anticipated to be released by December. This revised timeline could cause complications with OEM board-level approval for some manufacturers that would need the green light either by the end of this year or early in 2028 in order to be ready in time for 2030.

***It was confirmed on Friday that United Autosports’ trio of Phil Fayer, Hunter McElrea and Mikkel Jensen will team up for the 2026/27 Asian Le Mans Series, in one of the Anglo-American squad’s LMP2 entries in the European-based championship that kicks off at Paul Ricard on Nov. 13-15. United’s second entry for the series so far has Giorgo Roda as the only confirmed driver.

***The 29th Motul Petit Le Mans gets underway Saturday at 12:10 p.m. EST with live coverage on network NBC for the first three hours and NBCSN from 3 p.m. to post-race, and the entire race on streaming on Peacock. Brian Till and Dave Burns will be joined in the booth by Calvin Fish, Townsend Bell and Oliver Gavin, with Matt Yocum, Kevin Lee, Chris Wilner snd Amanda Busick on pit lane.

***IMSA Radio’s coverage, which will be available in audio form or on IMSA’s YouTube channel for international viewers, will be led by the expanded team of John Hindhaugh, Ryan Myrehn and Peter Makay in the booth, with Arjuna Kankipati and Neil Cole in the pit lane.

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