Pumpelly Takes St. Pete Race 1 Pole with Record Lap

Spencer Pumpelly set the fastest-ever GT4 lap of the St. Pete street course to take pole position for this afternoon’s Pirelli GT4 America Sprint season-opener.

Pumpelly’s time of 1:18.112 behind the wheel of the No. 66 TRG Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport eclipsed Gabriele Piana’s 2018 record by just under four tenths of a second.

This came after a post-practice Balance of Performance adjustment which added an extra 10kg to the minimum weight of the Porsches.

Jade Buford and Gar Robinson also dipped under Piana’s time to qualify second and third overall, ahead of Ian James in the best of the Panoz Avezzano GTs.

Buford’s effort in the No. 41 PF Racing Ford Mustang GT4 was 0.289 seconds short of Pumpelly’s pole time, while Robinson ended up 0.340 seconds off in the No. 74 Robinson Racing Chevrolet Camaro GT4.R.

James, meanwhile, ran half a second off the pace ahead of Robinson’s Shane Lewis and McLaren Automotive factory driver Michael Cooper driving the 570s GT4 run by Blackdog Speed Shop.

Pole position in the Am class went to Andretti Autosport’s Jarett Andretti, who steered his McLaren to a time of 1:19.431 to sit ahead of Preston Calvert in the second Panoz entry.

Alan Brynjolfsson, who paced both of the Friday practice sessions for Am, will start from third while Michael Dinan qualified fourth.

Saturday’s 50-minute, single-driver Sprint race takes place at 4:10 p.m. EST, with a second race scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Both will be streamed on World-Challenge.com and the GT World YouTube page.

RESULTS: Qualifying