Westbrook Takes Ford to GTLM Pole at Road Atlanta

Photo: Ford

Richard Westbrook gave Ford Chip Ganassi Racing its fourth GT Le Mans class pole of the season in qualifying for Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-ending Petit Le Mans.

Westbrook laid down a best lap of 1:18.131 in the No. 67 Ford GT, edging out the No. 3 Corvette C7.R of Antonio Garcia by 0.152 seconds.

It marked the Englishman’s third class pole of the season as he and co-driver Ryan Briscoe look to steal away the GTLM title from Corvette’s Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner, who head into the ten-hour race with a 11-point lead.

Milner qualified the No. 4 Corvette in seventh.

The No. 62 Risi Competizone Ferrari 488 GTE of Toni Vilander will start third in class, with Joey Hand (Ford) and Daniel Serra (Scuderia Corsa) completing the top-five in class.

Remarkably, the entire ten-car GTLM class was separated in qualifying by 0.735 seconds.

Jeroen Bleekemolen took the Dodge Viper GT3-R to the GT Daytona class pole in its final race in series competition.

The Dutchman reeled off a quick lap of 1:21.305 to edge out the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Matt McMurry by 0.460 seconds.

It marked the first class pole of the season for the Riley Motorsports squad, with Bleekemolen set to share driving duties with Ben Keating and Marc Miller in tomorrow’s race.

The No. 23 The Heart of Racing/AJR Porsche of Mario Farnbacher and No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 of Christina Nielsen, who is on the brink of the GTD title, completed the top-four in class.

The Petit Le Mans gets underway Saturday at 11:10 a.m. ET, live on FS1.

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