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UPDATE: Whelen Cadillac awarded IMS pole after MSR Acura fails inspection

It appeared as if Tom Blomqvist and Acura Meyer Shank Racing had won the pole for Sunday’s TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks, but after the No. 60 Acura ARX-06 failed post-qualifying technical inspection, Cadillac ended up locking out the top three grid positions for the six-hour penultimate round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Blomqvist and Colin Braun will start at the back of the GTP grid, in 12th, after the No. 60 Acura was found to be out of compliance with the bodywork tolerances as defined in the LMDh technical regulations. 

Article 3.11.2 of the ACO/IMSA LMDh technical regulations permits a maximum tolerance of three millimeters for general bodywork.

This ends what would have been a four-race GTP pole streak for Meyer Shank Racing dating back to the Detroit Sports Car Classic, and instead hands the pole to the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R driven by Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber, and Frederik Vesti.

Aitken put in a 1m14.610s to qualify 0.041s slower than Blomqvist’s nullified 1m14.569s, to give Cadillac its first pole of the 2025 IMSA season, and Cadillac Whelen/Action Express its first since last year’s Petit Le Mans.

They’ll share the front row with the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac, which qualified second via Louis Delétraz’s 1m14.715s. Teammate Ricky Taylor in the sister No. 10 WTR Cadillac qualified third with a 1m14.804s.

Behind them, Matt Campbell was fourth-quickest in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, followed by Nick Yelloly in the No. 93 MSR Acura in fifth. The No. 93 car was not subject to post-qualifying technical inspection.

Sheldon van der Linde in the No. 25 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 was sixth ahead of Dries Vanthoor in the No. 24 BMW in seventh. Then it was Romain Grosjean, eighth-fastest in the No. 63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63, followed by the No. 7 Penske Porsche of Felipe Nasr, the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie of Roman de Angelis, and the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche of Nico Müller.

In LMP2, 2024 LMP2 Champion Nick Boulle took his first pole of the year in the No. 2 United Autosports USA ORECA 07-Gibson, breaking a three-race pole streak for AO Racing’s PJ Hyett and heading an all-United front row in the class.

The LMP2 leg of Qualifying barely got going before Chris Cumming spun off on his out lap in the No. 73 Pratt Miller Motorsports car. He’ll start at the rear of the prototype grid.

Once qualifying resumed with eight minutes on the clock, Hyett asserted himself early, but the No. 22 United ORECA of Daniel Goldburg was also quick, taking provisional pole with a 1m18.574s.

In the last two minutes, Boulle – who’d only committed to the five Endurance Cup races for United – made a big leap, taking provisional pole with a 1m18.084s, then improving on his last lap to a 1m17.846s to seal the pole. He won the pole for last year’s Battle on the Bricks with Inter Europol Competition/PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports.

Goldburg’s time of 1m18.222s set at the checkered flag put the No. 22 United ORECA in second place. Steven Thomas in the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA would have taken second place, but his best lap (1m18.120s) was deleted, his penalty for causing a red flag in practice one on Friday.

Thomas shuffled down to fifth, behind the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA of PJ Hyett who’ll start third; Jeremy Clarke was fourth-fastest in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition car.

Jake Galstad/IMSA

A fight for the top spots in the GTD PRO grid went down to the checkered flag, but ultimately it was Dan Harper in the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO that took the top time in his class.

The former BMW Junior Team prodigy captured his first career IMSA pole and first for the No. 48 BMW with a 1m23.259s set in the final seconds of his 15-minute segment of qualifying. He’d taken provisional pole with a 1m23.337s, but the Ulsterman wasn’t content to rest on his laurels – with a new set of tires, Harper found another tenth at the very end to pad his margin.

Christopher Mies will share the front row of the GT grid, qualifying second in the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3, with a lap of 1m23.445s set with just a couple minutes left, on a sticker set of tires.

That was enough to usurp Mikaël Grenier in the No. 75 75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, who was third with a 1m23.487s – but that was also before the No. 75 failed its post-qualifying ride height check and was moved to the rear of the GTD PRO field for Sunday’s start.

GTD PRO championship leader Alexander Sims qualified fourth in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R, three places ahead of principal title rival Albert Costa in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 in seventh.

In between, Andrea Caldarelli and Laurin Heinrich set identical lap times of 1m23.559s – but because the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini of Caldarelli set the time first, he finished ahead of the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Heinrich.

For GTD, England’s Casper Stevenson put the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 on pole – the first of his IMSA career, and the second GTD pole of the year for the No. 27 Aston Martin which still has an outside chance at the title this weekend.

Stevenson pumped in a 1m23.088s, approaching the 2023 GT3 qualifying lap record set by Madison Snow, and surpassing the GTD PRO pole time. That was also enough to put him 0.2s clear of Lilou Wadoux in the returning No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari. The Frenchwoman set a 1m23.282s to secure second on the GTD grid, where she’ll line up next to the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG.

Lin Hodenius, in his first IMSA WeatherTech series appearance for Lone Star Racing, qualified third (1m23.507s), ahead of championship co-leader Russell Ward in the black and pink No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG. Making Hodenius’ run more impressive was that the team missed Friday’s first practice almost entirely due to a sensor issue.

The GTD Ferraris showed out in qualifying with Conquest Racing’s Manny Franco in fifth, Nicola Lacorte in sixth for Cetilar Racing and Onofrio Triarsi in eighth for Triarsi Competizione, behind the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette of Alec Udell.

Indianapolis’ last six-hour IMSA Endurance race for the foreseeable future starts Sunday at 11:40 a.m. ET. The final three hours of the race will air live on NBC in the United States, a perfect lead-in for Sunday Night Football. The entire race will air on Peacock (in the US), plus the official IMSA YouTube channel and IMSA.TV (in most other countries).

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