A great season in the IMSA SportsCar Championship just keeps getting better for Pfaff Motorsports and drivers Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet.
On Friday, Campbell guided Pfaff’s No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 R to the Motul Pole Award in the GTD PRO class for the FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park, the fast and frantic seven-turn road course in rural northwestern Connecticut.
Campbell lapped the 1.474-mile circuit in 51.079 seconds for an average speed of 104.167 mph to claim the Pfaff’s duo’s third pole start of the 2022 season and second consecutive.
The Pfaff pair have also racked up class victories in three races this year (the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in May and two weeks ago at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park). The latest pole extended their GTD PRO unofficial championship lead to 145 points over Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia (No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD), after Taylor qualified fourth on Friday.
Campbell said he relished the opportunity when he drew the qualifying assignment for Pfaff at Lime Rock.
“The qualifying changes hands throughout the year, but this is one where I really wanted to qualify,” said Campbell, a 27-year-old Australian. “I really enjoyed my last visit here in 2019, and this was the first track on the list where I wanted to have a crack. Really happy to pull it off. Another pole for the team, which is fantastic, and really, really critical.
“This is probably the most important pole we’ll have all year,” Campbell added. “It’s an incredibly short track, it’s hard to pass, and if you’re up front, you can manage your own race and your tires a bit easier. Tire degradation is huge for such a short track, and the most critical aspect of the race will be managing the tire and being smart with the race strategy and the stops.”
Jack Hawksworth returned from missing four races due to injuries sustained in a motocross accident to qualify the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 on the outside of the front row, notching a 51.097-second (104.131 mph) effort. Connor De Phillippi was third fastest in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 (51.227seconds, 103.866 mph) but the car was moved to the rear of the GTD PRO class for a ride height infraction discovered in post-qualifying technical inspection.
That moved Ross Gunn’s No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 into the third spot on the grid. Gunn’s best lap was 51.281 seconds (103.757 mph).
Frankie Montecalvo had plenty of pent-up emotion building within for the past two weeks. The Vasser Sullivan driver took it out on Lime Rock Park in GT Daytona (GTD) qualifying for the FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix.
Montecalvo captured the class pole position on July 1 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park but was collected in a first-turn incident that took him and the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 out on the opening lap of the race. Montecalvo repeated the Motul Pole Award-winning effort Friday at Lime Rock Park, with a sensational last-lap flyer that came within 0.003 seconds of the class track record. He’ll head the 10-car GTD field to the green flag in Saturday’s two-hour, 40-minute IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race – which he hopes will end with very different results.
“It was important to me to try to come back after that unfortunate event at Mosport,” said Montecalvo, whose co-driver is Aaron Telitz. “Definitely a lot of motivation for our team, for myself.
“This isn’t a track that’s particularly good for me. I was working with my teammates, just getting faster in practice and just went out there and executed exactly what I went out to do. Did a great lap and it really worked out for us.”
It didn’t work out by much in the highly competitive GTD field. The top six qualifiers turned laps within six-hundredths of a second of each other. Montecalvo edged former teammate Robert Megennis, now driving the No. 39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3, by six-thousandths of a second for the pole.
“We waited a long time to go out there and just tried to get some clear track,” Montecalvo said after earning his fourth career pole. “The team did a phenomenal job getting us a nice gap, but it wasn’t easy. That’s everything we had. It was the last lap that came down to it. I think we needed a tenth (of a second) at the end, and if you look at how close qualifying is, that little bit is what we needed.”
Just as important will be starting up front on the tight 1.474-mile road course.
“These cars are so close and passing is super difficult out there,” Montecalvo said. “Starting at the front generally helps that.”
The top five qualifying cars each represented a different manufacturer. Roman De Angelis qualified third in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and Robby Foley put the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 in fourth position.
Mike Skeen qualified fifth fastest in the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 that he’ll share with GTD points leader Stevan McAleer.
John Dubets and Robert Wickens captured the Motul Pole Award for their respective classes in qualifying for the Lime Rock Park 120, the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race set for Saturday (11 a.m. ET on Peacock and IMSA Radio).
Making his first series start in nine years, Dubets laid down a Grand Sport (GS) track-record lap of 53.691 seconds (99.100 mph) in the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport to take pole honors. It eclipsed the previous standard by 0.282 seconds.
“First time with the team, first time with the car,” said Dubets, who will share the No. 28 Porsche with Stevan McAleer in the two-hour race. “I would have never expected it with the field stacked like this to be right at the front, but I’m always confident coming into a weekend with a team like RS1 and a co-driver like Stevan McAleer. The lap really kind of came to us; we didn’t have to force it.”
Wickens continued his torrid streak by taking the Motul Pole Award in the Touring Car (TCR) class. Fresh off back-to-back wins with co-driver Michael Lewis, Wickens guided the No. 33 Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian Hyundai Elantra N TCR to a top lap of 54.048 seconds (98.445 mph). It not only earned the Canadian his first series pole by nearly three-tenths of a second, it ranked as the fifth-best lap turned by any of the 34 qualifiers.
“We’ve felt like this was here for a while, and things just weren’t clicking for one way or another,” Wickens said. “Finally, we had an issue-free qualifying. Yeah, it feels really great to finally get the pole out of the way.
“It wasn’t my tidiest of laps that I’ve done but it was quick. I was kicking myself. I went in a little too deep in Turn 6 and I left a little on the table, but thankfully the Hyundai Elantra N TCR was good enough and I had enough of a cushion to save myself.”
