O’Connell Storms to Long Beach Pole

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Johnny O’Connell claimed pole for the opening GT America powered by AWS round of the weekend at Long Beach, making it a sweep of the sessions Friday on the Southern California streets.

The SKI Autosports driver reeled off a best lap of 1:19.670 in his No. 3 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II to outpace James Sofronas, in a similar Audi, by 0.269 seconds

Sofronas, the GMG Racing team owner/driver, was a mere 0.009 seconds quicker than Jason Daskalos in the third-placed No. 27 CRP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Kyle Washington and Justin Rothberg completed the top-five for GMG and Turner Motorsport, respectively, with Ross Chouest set to start Race 1 from the sixth position in his Mercedes-AMG.

GT2 pole honors went to the No. 10 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT2 of Dan Knox, ahead of Sonoma sweeper Aaron Farhadi in the No. 127 TPC Racing Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2.

Gray Newell threw down a late flyer to put his No. 25 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4 on class pole, ahead of the pair of Rotek Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsports in second and third, respectively.

Race 1 of the weekend gets underway Saturday at 4:45 p.m. PDT (7:45 p.m. EDT) with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube page and on Twitch.

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