Tom Blomqvist put down a stunning lap under the evening lights to secure the Motul Pole Award for the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Piloting the No. 60 Acura ARX-06 that he shares with Colin Braun, Blomqvist clocked a 1 minute, 14.674 seconds around the 14-corner, 2.439-mile IMS road course, averaging 117.582 mph.
It was a blistering session that saw only Blomqvist and GTP class points leader Jack Aitken manage to dip below the 1:15 barrier. Aitken punched in a 1:14.975 to secure the outside of the front row for Sunday's 2-hour, 40-minute sprint race. Meanwhile, the session's late drama saw Blomqvist dodge damp spots left by an earlier shower to snatch the top spot with under three minutes remaining in the 15-minute run. Aitken also fought his way upward at the checkered flag, ultimately bumping the No. 24 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde down to third.
"We had some new concepts to try out in practice, and they seemed to be working," Blomqvist remarked of the performance. "The weather was a bit of an unknown... I felt like I only really had one good shot at it there and the car just performed."
This marks the seventh career WeatherTech Championship pole for Blomqvist and the 25th for Meyer Shank Racing, which hits the milestone of its 399th and 400th IMSA starts on Sunday across its No. 60 and 93 entries. The sister No. 93 machine, driven by Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande, qualified fifth and enters the weekend third in the GTP driver standings. Championship leader Aitken heads into Sunday's race with a 127-point advantage over Laurin Heinrich, whose Porsche 963—qualified by Kevin Estre for Porsche Penske Motorsport—will start eighth.
Over in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Jeremy Clarke continued a dominant qualifying streak by claiming pole position in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07. Posting a 1:17.555, the Californian captured his fifth pole in the past seven races despite dealing with lingering rubber on the track from an earlier series session and tricky grip levels. Daniel Goldburg slotted into second in the No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA with a 1:17.713, just ahead of PJ Hyett in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA at 1:17.770.
Weather played a disruptive role elsewhere on the schedule, as lightning near the track forced IMSA officials to abandon the scheduled qualifying sessions for Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) and GTD PRO. As a result, those starting grids will be set entirely by team championship points. That means the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen inherits the GTD PRO pole, while Russell Ward and Philip Ellis will lead the GTD field to green in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
