Ellis, Milner Score VIR Poles

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Philip Ellis and Tommy Milner have claimed pole positions for this weekend’s pair of Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS races at Virginia International Raceway.

Ellis took his No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo to a quick lap of 1:45.470 in a slightly damp, but drying, qualifying session to edge out the No. 63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Alec Udell by 0.117 seconds.

Udell’s time was good enough for the Pro class pole position for Race 1.

Bill Auberlen qualified third overall and second in Pro in the No. 28 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3, followed by the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 of Luca Mars and Spencer Pumpelly’s No. 85 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R.

It resulted in five different GT3 manufacturers in the top-five.

The No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche was next up in sixth, followed by Justin Rothberg, who qualified second in Pro-Am in the No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW.

Q2 saw Milner pedal his No. 63 DXDT Corvette to a 1:44.775 lap time, edging out a late charge from Pro-Am class contender Robby Foley by just 0.004 seconds.

Elliott Skeer will start third overall and second in Pro in his Wright Porsche, followed by Tom Sargent’s No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche and the No. 08 DXDT Corvette of Bryan Sellers completing the overall top-five.

A red flag ended the session with just a few seconds left on the clock due to a spin by the No. 8 Flying Lizard Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Andy Lee.

Race 1 gets underway at 3:10 p.m. EDT with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and on Twitch.

RESULTS: Qualifying 1/Qualifying 2

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