Montoya Edges out Nasr to take Long Beach Pole Position

Juan Pablo Montoya gave Acura Team Penske pole position around the streets of Long Beach, with the #6 ARX 05 machine edging out the current IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship leaders by just under two-tenths of a second.

Montoya, who shares driving duties in the #6 with Dane Cameron, set the pace with a great lap of 1:12.922s, with the Colombian the only driver to get below the seventy-three second mark in the session.

Felipe Nasr was Montoya’s closest challenger, but the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R he shares with Eric Curran was forced to settle for second on the grid, 0.187 seconds down, while Mazda Team Joest will start third thanks to Harry Tincknell’s lap of 1:13.156s.

The #7 Penske of Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor was fourth, just over four-tenths of a second down on the sister car, while the #5 Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac of Joao Barbosa and Filipe Albuquerque was fifth.

The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac, victorious in the past three seasons at Long Beach, could only qualify sixth, with Renger van der Zande setting the cars best lap, with the second Mazda of Tristan Nunez was seventh.

Tequila Patron ESM will start eighth and tenth respectively, the #2 ahead of the #22, with the #52 AFS/PRI Mathiasen Motorsports Ligier LMP2 splitting the two Nissan Onroak DPi’s.

The GT Le Mans battle for pole position saw the #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing machine of Joey Hand and Dirk Muller edging out the #912 Porsche GT Team 911 RSR of Laurens Vanthoor and Earl Bamber by 0.144 seconds.

The second Porsche of Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy will start third in class ahead of the leading Corvette Racing machine of defending champions Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia, with their sister car of Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner fifth.

The second Ford GT of Richard Westbrook and Ryan Briscoe will start sixth, with the eight-car field being rounded out by the two BMW Team RLL machines, the #25 ahead of the #24.