Laurens Vanthoor has claimed pole position for tomorrow's Michelin GT Challenge at VIR with a time of 01:40:630, while team-mate Nick Tandy crashed his car late in the session.
Vanthoor, who had been fast in practice leading up to the 15-minute qualifying dash, put in an impressive performance to claim his second pole position in the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship. His time was under assault by both Jan Magnussen and Ryan Briscoe as the seconds counted down, but neither driver could topple it.
Magnussen came closest, just 0.078s behind Vanthoor, while Ryan Briscoe had to settle for third. Briscoe's team-mate Joey Hand completed the second row, ahead of the #4 Corvette of Oliver Gavin and the #911 Porsche of Nick Tandy.
Tandy's session ended in less than favourable fashion when the Brit slid off on the wet grass and smashed his Porsche 911 RSR into the tyre barrier, and had to settle for sixth ahead of the two BMWs of John Edwards and Connor de Phillippi.
GTD qualifying was a frantic affair, as the drivers ventured out on a still damp Virginia International Raceway. Cooper Macneill and Richard Heistand found this out the hard way as they both had off-track excursions.
As the track dried up, the rapidly dropping laptimes became a battle between Acura, Lexus and Porsche. It was the latter that came out victorious, when Pfaff's Zacharie Robichon took pole position right at the line with a scorching 01:45:826. This was enough to put him ahead of the two AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3s of Frankie Montecalvo and Richard Heistand.
The top five in class was rounded out by the two Acuras, with the #86 of Trent Hindman ahead of IMSA debutant Alice Powell in the #57.
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