SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Rennsport One has dominated the entire weekend for IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge up to this point. Qualifying Saturday morning (Sept. 21) was no different as Trent Hindman won the pole for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with a lap at 97.633 mph.
Hindman’s lap was .583 seconds quicker than TeamTGM’s Paul Holton. Nate Cicero, who is making his series debut for McCumbee-McAleer Racing, will start third in his Ford Mustang GT4. Motorsports In Action’s Michael de Quesada was fourth, while Kellymoss with Riley’s Michael McCarthy will start fifth.
Early on, Rory van der Steur was quickest in his Aston Martin. However, it wasn’t long before Hindman put himself on top of the chart.
Motorsports In Action’s Michael de Quesada was briefly able to usurp Hindman on his second lap at speed. Hindman then came back with the fastest time overall in all three sectors to take the pole back.
While that lap would have been good enough to win the pole by itself, Hindman wasn’t done. His next lap was even quicker and that stood for pole. It was the only lap of the session under 90 seconds.
In TCR, teams slowly got themselves up to speed. The 8 a.m. ET start for the session meant that the track temperature was quite low.
Montreal Motorsport Group’s Daijiro Yoshihara put his Honda Civic on pole early on. This was not much of a surprise as Yoshihara topped the first practice session in class Friday morning.
The session was red-flagged nine minutes in when Bryan Herta Autosport’s Taylor Hagler stopped on course with an apparent engine failure. That cost Hagler her best two laps and means that she will start at the rear of the field later today.
The session did not resume after Hagler’s failure, meaning that Yoshihara’s lap at 94.296 mph held up for the class pole, his second of the year. The speed was a bit slower than practice due to optimum temperatures not being reached before the session was curtailed.
Yoshihara’s lap was .111 seconds faster than JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Chris Miller. HART’s Tyler Chambers will start third in his Honda, then Bryan Herta Autosport’s Preston Brown. Eduardo Gou was fifth.
The red flag didn’t just hurt Hagler, but it hurt her teammates Harry Gottsacker and Mark Wilkins as well. Both drivers chose to wait on the pit lane before starting their qualifying efforts. Neither Gottsacker nor Wilkins had completed a lap at speed when Hagler’s failure occurred. As a…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …