IMSA News: Bourdais Puts No. 01 Cadillac On Pole at Indy

Cadillac Racing and Sébastien Bourdais will start on the pole position for the fifth time in eight IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races.

Bourdais drove the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R to the top of the lap time chart in the 15-minute Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) qualifying session Saturday with a best of 1 minute, 14.592 seconds on the 2.439-mile, 14-turn Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

It is the 29th earned pole for Cadillac Racing since entering prototype competition in 2017 and the second in a week. The No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R secured its maiden pole in its second season in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) at Fuji, Japan.

A gaggle of dedicated spectators baked in the sun on the viewing mounds lining the 2.439-mile road course’s opening sequence of corners and at the end of the backstretch, while others sought shade in the covered grandstands high atop Turn 1 of the IMS oval. They saw Bourdais put on a clinic as he earned his seventh pole in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship action.

Bourdais is also a former sports car race winner at Indianapolis, sharing in a Daytona Prototype class win with Alex Popow in 2012. It was his first pole in 22 attempts at Indianapolis, spread across sports cars and Indy car races on the Speedway’s road course and iconic oval.

“Not a great record, huh? 22 attempts!” joked the 45-year-old Frenchman.

“Obviously it’s always great to be on pole, and it’s a very nice feeling to do it at the home base of Chip Ganassi Racing,” Bourdais continued. “It helps us to stay alive in the championship fight, which is obviously a long shot. But we live to fight another day, and that’s very much the spirit we have for the rest of the season. That Cadillac was quite good today.”

Bourdais and co-driver Renger van der Zande last started from the pole in May at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Their most recent WeatherTech Championship race win was just prior to that in Long Beach.

The No. 01 Cadillac duo arrived at Indianapolis ranked third in the GTP championship points standings behind a pair of Porsche Penske Motorsport entries. The championship-leading No. 7 Porsche 963 of Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron qualified seventh at IMS, while the team’s No. 6 entry earned the third starting spot.

Louis Deletraz and Jordan Taylor (No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06) earned the outside front row starting spot with a lap of 1:14.817 (117.358 mph), 0.225-seconds off Bourdais’ best lap.

Bourdais believes that traffic will be the biggest issue in Sunday’s race, which for the first time is a round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Championship. There’s also a possibility of rain, but Bourdais and Cadillac are ready.

“We really didn’t know where we stood after practice because qualifying was the only time that we were able to string two or three laps together,” he said. “The density of the traffic, with 56 cars on track, is just insane. That was the big unknown, going into qualifying, and it was a big guessing game. So, we pretty much decided to just trust the read we had from when we tested here a month or so ago and had the track to ourselves. There was no way to know anything else from the practice we had.

“We just stuck to our guns, and it was definitely challenging because the tires got hot really quick and the window to get a lap in was not very wide.”

LMP2: Boulle Earns First Career Pole, Extends Points Lead

In Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Nick Boulle and Tom Dillmann unofficially extended their lead in the class point standings from 27 to 38 as Boulle claimed the Motul Pole Award. They will be joined behind the wheel this weekend by Jakub Smiechowski.

Boulle was the only LMP2 driver to break the 1 minute, 18-second barrier, clocking a tour of 1:17.618 (113.122 mph) in the No. 52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 to earn his first career pole in IMSA competition.

The lap was 0.461-seconds quicker than the second-fastest LMP2 qualifier, Steven Thomas in the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA.

Boulle’s three fastest laps in the 15-minute LMP2 session would have been good for the top spot.

“To be perfectly honest, I think we’ve struggled in qualifying through the year, just in terms of finding that magic lap, or getting the tires in the right window,” Boulle said. “And we found it. That was certainly a special lap, one that I will remember for a long time.

“Every lap in the car I feel like I learn something,” he added. “I think this place in particular rewards being aggressive, but it’s very detail oriented in terms of how you just touch the curbs, using every bit of track at certain points. I think that lends itself well to me. Where you get to push here makes it a really fun place to drive, and I have enjoyed it.”

Ben Keating qualified third in class in the No. 2 United Autosports USA ORECA, while Boulle and Dillmann’s closest rival in the championship chase, the No. 74 Riley ORECA shared by Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga, will start seventh.

The TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks runs from 11:40 a.m.-5:40 p.m. ET on Sunday. Live flag-to-flag coverage starts on Peacock at 11:30, with NBC joining at 3 p.m. to carry the final three hours.

Catsburg puts Corvette on GTD Pro Pole

Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R will start from the GTD PRO pole position for Sunday’s six-hour Battle on The Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after Nicky Catsburg’s effort in Saturday’s 15-minute qualifying session.

Catsburg set a best lap of 1:23.209 (105.521 mph) in the Corvette that originally qualified second in class, just 0.059 seconds from pole position. However the GTD PRO pole-winning car was penalized in post-qualifying technical inspection, elevating Catsburg and teammate Tommy Milner to the point in class as the duo tries for their first class victory of the season and second for the Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports team.

Qualifying Results