BOWMANVILLE, Ontario – Canada proved to be Acura country in Motul Pole Award qualifying for the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, the sixth round of the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Acura locked out the front row overall and for the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class for Sunday’s two-hour, 40-minute race, with Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist claiming pole position for the second consecutive year at CTMP.
Blomqvist, who set the track record at the circuit last year in the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class that preceded GTP’s debut this year, lapped the 10-turn, 2.459-mile facility Saturday in 1 minute, 5.653 seconds (134.836 mph) behind the wheel of the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06. That was 0.081 seconds better than Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 (1:05.734/134.670 mph). Pipo Derani was another 0.095 seconds in arrears in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R.
It was the fifth career pole in IMSA competition for Blomqvist, who shares the No. 60 Acura with Colin Braun, a five-time winner at CTMP.
“It’s always a hell of a commitment around this track, no matter what kind of car you’re in,” said Blomqvist. “When you put new tires on and take the fuel out around here, your minimum speeds go up drastically. It’s just a night-and-day difference when you take it for a qualifying run. It’s such a good feeling.
“Actually, last year, the car was a lot more of a wild ride,” he continued with a chuckle. “We’ve got a good car this year; it’s a bit more forgiving. Nonetheless, I wasn’t too happy with my personal performance in that session. It was a little bit messy from my side, but I’m still sitting here (as the pole winner), which is fantastic, and testament to the job the team has done.”
In last year’s Chevrolet Grand Prix, the pole-winning No. 60 Acura held the lead through most of the race before Blomqvist’s former co-driver Oliver Jarvis was passed in traffic by Renger van der Zande’s Cadillac. The bitter memory lingers for Blomqvist.
“This is a difficult track to pass, but there are so many cars on track that you always have an opportunity to pass in traffic,” he said. “But it’s also easy to get caught out if you make a bad decision and just read a competitor slightly wrong.
“Tomorrow we just need to get the job done,” Blomqvist added. “Colin has been really, really quick around here. He loves this place; he loves the high-speed corners, so it’s perfect for him. I just need to do my job at the start, hopefully give the car to him in the lead, and we can get the job done from there. You’ve got to be on your game and make all the right calls. I’m confident for tomorrow.”
Defending Chevrolet Grand Prix winners van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais will start fourth in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing Cadillac, followed by Felipe Nasr and Matt Campbell in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963, and Augusto Farfus and Philipp Eng in the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8, as all four participating GTP manufacturers qualified a car in the top six.
Robust Run for Robinson to LMP3 Pole
Gar Robinson was a one-man show in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) qualifying on Saturday. The 28-year-old Texan ran a series of four remarkably consistent laps in the No. 74 Riley Ligier JS P 320 – all within 0.202 seconds and all good enough to claim the Motul Pole Award for the class.
His best effort, 1:12.946 (121.355 mph) bested Orey Fidani (No. 13 AWA Duqueine D08) by 0.409 seconds.
It was Robinson’s fourth career pole and first since securing the top LMP3 starting spot at the same track one year ago. Robinson and co-driver Felipe Fraga lead the LMP3 point standings and are coming off consecutive race wins at Sebring International Raceway and Watkins Glen International.
“I was looking at the lap time predictor on my dash and using it to try and go faster,” Robinson said. “We used qualifying as another practice session as well. We didn’t test here like some other cars in our class, so we played around with it and I wanted to try and give myself a few extra laps. Didn’t really have any reason to go faster, so we pulled in to save the tires for tomorrow.”
Robinson hopes to avoid duplicating the No. 74’s experience last year at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, where the team was eliminated by a crash about two-thirds of the way through the race.
“We just have to be careful because traffic is definitely going to be an issue here,” Robinson explained. “Going off into the marbles is not something you really want to do here because it’s a very high commitment track for everybody. You’ve got to take your time and calculate your way through traffic and just keep the machine going.”