No. 93 Acura Goes Back-to-Back-to-Back for Motul Pole Award at Road America

At 4.048 miles and with an average speed of over 130 miles per hour, Road America is the longest and one of the fastest circuits in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class features staggering diversity between cars.

 Still, qualifying for the Motul SportsCar Grand Prix ended with two Acura ARX-06 and two BMW M Hybrid V8s clustered within 0.080 seconds. Nine of the 11 GTP entries spread among five manufacturers were separated by 0.681 seconds.

It was a remarkable display of speed and precision driving, and Nick Yelloly of Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian did it best. Yelloly’s 1 minute, 48.628-second tour of Road America averaging 134.152 mph earned the No. 93 Acura its third consecutive Motul Pole Award and puts him and co-driver Renger van der Zande in the best possible position to earn their second GTP win in the last three races.

BMW M Team RLL placed its cars second and third, with Sheldon van der Linde in the No. 25 outqualifying Dries Vanthoor in the No. 24 by 0.002 seconds (1:48.681 vs. 1:48.683). Colin Braun, who teamed with Tom Blomqvist to win the most recent round of the WeatherTech Championship in the No. 60 Acura, was fourth at 1:48.708.

With a 250-point deficit in the driver point standings to the two Porsche Penske Motorsport pairings, Yelloly and van der Zande’s championship hopes are slim. But Acura was just 90 points behind Porsche in the manufacturer’s championship coming into Road America.

Porsche will start Saturday’s race fifth (points leaders Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell in the No. 6) and eighth (Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy in the No. 7).

“It’s always better when you’re getting results,” Yelloly said. “We were operating at a high level already, and maybe we weren’t executing as well as we needed to be. Now we’re executing and are starting to become super-top-notch, and that’s what you have to be to win these IMSA races.

“We knew it was going to be very close and I knew I just had to execute and put the cleanest lap together,” he added. “My lap was as clean as it could be – almost! I was tracking a little faster on the next lap and made a small mistake, so I’m glad it was good enough from the pole. We’ll try to control the race tomorrow and try to get another win for HRC (Honda Racing Corp.) and Acura Meyer Shank.”

 Perfect weather is anticipated for Sunday’s two-hour, 40-minute race. “IMSA racing is always super exciting, isn’t it?” Yelloly queried. “Let’s go racing!”

LMP2: Hyett Spikes the Competition Again

Seeing PJ Hyett claim the Motul Pole Award for the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class of an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race is not a surprise. A margin over his nearest competitor of 0.666 seconds is rather unusual.

Hyett drove AO Racing’s No. 99 ORECA LMP2 07 nicknamed ‘Spike’ to his third consecutive class pole and his seventh in eleven career IMSA starts. His three best laps, culminating in a 1 minute, 53.240-second (128.689 mph) flyer, were faster than the competition could muster. George Kurtz came closest in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07 at 1:53.906 (127.936 mph). Ever the perfectionist, Hyett believed he could have gone faster.

“To be honest that last lap toward the end there I thought I could have gone quicker,” he said. “But I can’t be upset about getting pole again. It’s those little things, though, that will keep me up at night thinking about what ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda,’ but I’m very, very happy about putting that lap time together.”

It was also Hyett’s second consecutive LMP2 pole at Road America, which the Chicago area resident considers his home track. He paid tribute to the enormous crowd on hand for the Motul SportsCar Grand Prix weekend.

“The formation laps at Road America end up being some of the most special times on a racetrack,” Hyett said. “You can see everybody along the fence all around the racetrack. I absolutely love the fan turnout here and it’s always a pleasure to be here.”

Hyett and co-driver Dane Cameron rank second in the LMP2 championship to Saturday’s third-place qualifiers Daniel Goldburg and Paul Di Resta (No. 22 United Autosports ORECA LMP2).

Results are HERE