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Qualifying report

Long Beach IMSA: Castroneves and Tandy win pole positions

Helio Castroneves earned pole position for the BUBBA Burger SportsCar Grand Prix at Long Beach with a brilliant 1min11.332sec laptime for Acura Team Penske.

Prototype pole winner #7 Acura Team Penske Acura DPi, DPi: Helio Castroneves

Prototype pole winner #7 Acura Team Penske Acura DPi, DPi: Helio Castroneves

Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Castroneves, a four-time IndyCar Long Beach polesitter, was over 0.2sec faster than his closest opposition, the Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R of Felipe Nasr, in the #7 Acura ARX-05.

That was over half a second quicker than his third-placed teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, who took pole for this event last year.

Joao Barbosa made a late improvement to slot the second AXR Cadillac into fourth place.

Jonathan Bomarito appeared to have a chance of taking pole but understeered his #55 Mazda RT24-P into the tires exiting Turn 6 after clipping the inside wall, although he remained over a quarter-second faster than teammate Tristan Nunez.

Jordan Taylor, who had his appendix removed earlier this week and for whom Kamui Kobayashi was on standby as sub, was a brave seventh fastest in the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac ahead of the similar cars of JDC-Miller and Juncos Racing.

In GT Le Mans, Nick Tandy produced a 1min16.313sec in the #911 Porsche 911 RSR to win pole, just 0.064sec ahead of teammate Laurens Vanthoor, who made a slight mistake on his final flying lap when he appeared to be heading for P1.

Corvette Racing’s Oliver Gavin was 0.2sec behind in third, beating IndyCar ace Sebastien Bourdais in the #66 Ford GT, the Frenchman subbing for the unwell Joey Hand.

Antonio Garcia slotted the second Corvette into fifth ahead of Ford fulltimer Ryan Briscoe in the #67 Ford, while the two BMW M8 GTEs of Tom Blomqvist and John Edwards brought up the rear.

Qualifying results:

Pos. Num Driver Class Chassis Time Gap
1 7 Brazil Helio Castroneves
United States Ricky Taylor
DPi Acura DPi 1'11.332  
2 31 Brazil Pipo Derani
Brazil Felipe Nasr
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'11.550 0.218
3 6 Colombia Juan Pablo Montoya
United States Dane Cameron
DPi Acura DPi 1'11.847 0.515
4 5 Portugal Filipe Albuquerque
Portugal Joao Barbosa
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'11.870 0.538
5 55 United Kingdom Harry Tincknell
United States Jonathan Bomarito
DPi Mazda DPi 1'11.884 0.552
6 77 United Kingdom Oliver Jarvis
United States Tristan Nunez
DPi Mazda DPi 1'12.147 0.815
7 10 United States Jordan Taylor
Netherlands Renger van der Zande
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'12.312 0.980
8 84 Switzerland Simon Trummer
South Africa Stephen Simpson
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'12.455 1.123
9 85 Canada Mikhail Goikhberg
France Tristan Vautier
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'12.650 1.318
10 50 United States Kyle Kaiser
United States Will Owen
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'12.694 1.362
11 54 United States Jon Bennett
United States Colin Braun
DPi Nissan DPi 1'13.389 2.057
12 911 United Kingdom Nick Tandy
France Patrick Pilet
GTLM Porsche 911 RSR 1'16.313 4.981
13 912 New Zealand Earl Bamber
Belgium Laurens Vanthoor
GTLM Porsche 911 RSR 1'16.377 5.045
14 4 United Kingdom Oliver Gavin
United States Tommy Milner
GTLM Chevrolet Corvette C7.R 1'16.520 5.188
15 66 France Sébastien Bourdais
Germany Dirk Muller
GTLM Ford GT 1'16.662 5.330
16 3 Denmark Jan Magnussen
Spain Antonio Garcia
GTLM Chevrolet Corvette C7.R 1'16.685 5.353
17 67 Australia Ryan Briscoe
United Kingdom Richard Westbrook
GTLM Ford GT 1'16.874 5.542
18 25 United States Connor de Phillippi
United Kingdom Tom Blomqvist
GTLM BMW M8 GTE 1'17.021 5.689
19 24 United States John Edwards
Finland Jesse Krohn
GTLM BMW M8 GTE 1'17.236 5.904

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