Mazda grabs second IMSA DPi pole of the season at Mid-Ohio

If Sunday’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio is anything like Saturday’s 15-minute IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Daytona Prototype international (DPi) qualifying session, the race fans at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and those watching the NBCSN live telecast (coverage begins at 1:30 p.m. ET Sunday) are in for quite a show.

It was an all-out, battle royal for the Motul Pole Award that went right down to the final minute of the session before Oliver Jarvis secured his second pole of the season in the No. 77 Mazda Team Joest RT24-P. After current DPi points leader, Pipo Derani set the pace early on in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R, the battle for the pole came down between Jarvis and Dane Cameron in the No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPi.

Jarvis and Cameron traded the top spot no less than four times before Jarvis finally posted a lap of one minute, 10.705 seconds (114.967 mph) around the 2.258-mile permanent road course to get the pole. He then ran out of fuel at the end of his final qualifying lap as Cameron appeared to be on one last flyer, but the Mazda had just enough to keep the pole.

“We basically had zero dry running (before qualifying),” Jarvis said. “We got a little bit this morning, but the track was still improving. I think what you saw was a combination of the track getting better, the drivers taking a step each lap, and then Dane and I just going head-to-head.

“It was a head-to-head battle, we just didn’t realize it at the time. I just kept getting a new update. I’d do, like a 12.0 and think, ‘Oh, that was a good lap.’ Then, I’d get told on the radio, ‘Target time’s 11.6.’ It’s like, ‘OK, I’ll go again.’ Then do 11.4 and there’s a new target time. It was great fun.
 

“This track for me in the dry – I mean, I was disappointed when it was wet, just purely because it’s such a driver’s track in the dry. You can really hang the car out and push. You can really find some time by taking a bit of risk, but you can also stick it in the wall and look silly. To come into pit lane in P1 and the car in one piece is fantastic.”

Jarvis eclipsed Helio Castroneves’ year-old track record of 1:11.837 by more than a second. That’s nothing new for Jarvis, though. He opened the year with the Motul Pole Award for the Rolex 24 At Daytona, breaking PJ Jones’ 26-year-old track record at Daytona. He and co-driver Tristan Nunez will be looking for Mazda Team Joest’s first WeatherTech Championship victory on Sunday.

In LMP2 qualifying, class points leader Kyle Masson took the Motul Pole Award. He posted a best lap of 1:14.877 (108.561 mph) in the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA he shares with Cameron Cassels. It was Masson’s first career WeatherTech Championship pole.

“It feels really good,” Masson said. “We had a strong race car last year. The conditions have been wet, so not much time to focus on anything, but we went on the knowledge we had last year and capitalized on it. We were able to improve the car regardless of the fact we didn’t have any sessions or time to put it together. The team did a great job doing that. It’s really cool to be here.”

In GTLM Porsche’s impressive three-race qualifying streak in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Le Mans class came to an end Saturday but it certainly wasn’t for a lack of effort.
 

Sebastian Bourdais – subbing for Joey Hand in the No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT – alternated fast laps with the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR of Laurens Vanthoor throughout the session’s final two minutes, with Bourdais ultimately nipping Vanthoor by 0.275 of a second at the checkered flag.

Vanthoor held the top spot briefly with a lap of one minute, 19.399 seconds (102.378 mph) on his final lap, but was bested by Bourdais just seconds later with a lap of 1:19.124 (102.734 mph).

It was Bourdais’ second career WeatherTech Championship pole, with his first coming at Sebring in 2014 for Action Express Racing. He will lead the eight-car GTLM field to the green flag for Sunday’s Acura Sports Car Challenge which takes the green flag at 1:30 p.m. ET and can be seen live on NBCSN.

“The guys did a really good job,” said Bourdais, who is subbing for Hand for the second consecutive race as Hand is focusing on recovery efforts from a recent bout with the flu to ensure he’s prepared for Le Mans. “It’s really tricky conditions. We really didn’t get good reads this morning, and it was wet again to start with but to begin the weekend out on top, I’m really proud of all the guys. Ford gave us a great car. I couldn’t be any happier.”
 

Porsche had previously won the pole for all three WeatherTech Championship races to-date this season, with Nick Tandy scoring the pole at Daytona and Long Beach and his No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR co-driver Patrick Pilet leading the way at Sebring.

Ford is the only manufacturer with two cars in the top-five with Ryan Briscoe qualifying fifth in the No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT entry.

It was a back-and-forth qualifying session, with the pole position swapping hands nine times over the final five minutes of the 15-minute session and five different drivers leading at one point. In fact, the four different manufacturers that make up the GTLM class took the top four spots on the grid with the No. 24 BMW Team RLL M8 of Jesse Krohn and the No. 4 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R of Tommy Milner making up the second row.

In GTD Richard Heistand won his first Motul Pole Award in the No. 14 AIM VASSER SULLIVAN Lexus RC F GT3, topping the GT Daytona (GTD) class with a time of 1:24.281 (96. 448 mph).

The Acura Sports Car Challenge gets underway on Sunday starting at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN. IMSA Radio commentary will be available on RadioLeMans.com and on SiriusXM Radio Channel 202 (Streaming 972). Fans are also encouraged to join the conversation on social media using the hashtag #IMSAatMO.
 

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