Long, Parente Secure CTMP Poles for Wright, K-PAX

Wright Motorsports and K-PAX Racing shared out the pole positions for this weekend’s pair of Blancpain GT World Challenge America races at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Patrick Long’s time of 1:16.023 was enough to put the No. 58 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R on pole for tomorrow’s 90-minute contest in the first of two 15-minute sessions.

The Porsche factory driver lapped less than a second quicker than Alegra Motorsports’ Daniel Morad as Porsches claimed both front-row grid positions.

It marked the first overall pole for Porsche this season, as well as Wright’s first in SprintX format competition since the Lime Rock Park round two years ago.

The Wright team doubled its fortunes when Anthony Imperato set the fastest Pro-Am lap to put the No. 91 Porsche on top of the class pile and seventh overall.

Miguel Molina qualified third in the No. 61 R. Ferri Motorsport Ferrari 488 GT3 with a time of 1:16.173, ahead of Rodrigo Baptista in the No. 3 K-PAX Bentley Continental GT3.

Morad’s Alegra teammate Wolf Henzler came through in fifth, while Andy Soucek placed sixth ahead of Imperato who narrowly edged out DXDT Racing’s George Kurtz 0.065 seconds to seal Pro-Am honors.

In the second session, Alvaro Parente gave the No. 9 K-PAX Racing Bentley its fourth pole in seven races with a 1:15.586 effort.

A tenth off the pace in second was Molina’s co-driver Toni Vilander, ahead of Imperato’s driving partner Dennis Olsen who ensured a sweep of the Pro-Am poles for the No. 91 Wright crew.

Maxime Soulet put the No. 3 Bentley on the second row of the race 2 grid, in front of the RealTime Acura NSX GT3 Evo of Dane Cameron and the DXDT Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Ryan Dalziel.

After Morad scored a place on the front-row in Q1, his Alegra co-driver Michael de Quesada could only manage 12th-fastest in the 13-car field during the second session.

The No. 58 Wright Porsche will start race 2 from eighth on the grid after Scott Hargrove posted a time of 1:16.117 that would have been good enough for third in Q1.

The first of this weekend’s two 90-minute races is set to get underway tomorrow at 2:10 p.m. eastern time (7:10 p.m. UK).

RESULTS: Qualifying 1
RESULTS: Qualifying 2