Jeansonne Storms to First Career Pole at Indy

Aaron Jeansonne stormed to his first-ever Porsche Carrera Cup North America pole position in a back-and-forth qualifying battle at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Friday.

Riley Dickinson leapt to the top of the pile early on, before being edged out by Kellymoss rookie teammate Jeansonne in the No. 24 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car halfway through the 30-minute session.

While Topp Racing’s Ryan Yardley then topped the times in the middle of the session, it was Jeansonne who improved again to reel off a benchmark 1:25.015 lap on his tenth of 14 attempts around the 2.4-mile road course to secure the Race 1 pole.

Yardley was second-fastest, 1:25.015, 0.219 seconds down on Jeansonne’s time and a narrow 0.052 seconds clear of the third-place finishing Zachary Vanier in his No. 9 JDX Racing Porsche.

Dickinson will roll off the grid fourth overall for Kellymoss with Topp’s Tyler Maxson in fifth overall as the second-highest qualifying rookie.

Margins were tight in the morning qualifying session, with the top 11 times all covered by less than a second.

Kellymoss secured the Pro-Am pole position courtesy of Alan Metni’s 1:26.364 lap in the No. 99 Porsche, which proved 14th quickest overall in the session. Metni was just over two tenths clear of ACI Motorsports’ JP Martinez, who was classified 18th overall.

Masters class points leader Scott Blind claimed the class pole for Ruckus Racing ahead of Chris Bellomo.

Friday’s qualifying session ran entirely green, without so much as an off for any of the 26 drivers competing, though Patrick Mulcahy was stripped of his best lap and will start 22nd overall and fourth in Pro-Am after bringing out the red flag in practice yesterday.

Race 1 will take the green flag Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. EST with live coverage on Peacock as well as Porsche Motorsport North America and IMSA’s YouTube channels.

RESULTS: Qualifying