Castroneves places Acura Team Penske on pole at Long Beach

The Long Beach track, Helio Castroneves knows her well. In 2001, the Brazilian won in Champ Car, but last night, it was at the wheel of theAcura ARX-05 n°7 of Team Penske that the three-time Indy 500 winner shone in Californian qualifying, where only the DPi and GTLM categories were on track.

Author of a new track record in IMSA in 1'11″332, Castroneves erased from the shelves the previous reference held by Juan Pablo Montoya since last year, and offered pole to Roger Penske's structure.

Felipe Nasr (Cadillac DPi-VR n°31 – Action Express Racing) fails at 0″218 while the second row will be shared by Juan Pablo Montoya – Dane Cameron (Acura ARX-05 n°6) and Joao Barbosa – Filipe Albuquerque ( Cadillac DPi-VR n°5 – Action Express Racing).

Followed by the two Mazda RT24-P n°55 of Bomarito – Tincknell and n°77 of Jarvis – Nunez. Lined up in the No. 85 Cadillac DPi-VR – JDC-Miller, Tristan Vautier will see his teammate Misha Goikhberg start from 9th place.

In GTLM, Porsche, tenant du titre dans les rues californiennes, a signé le doublé avec les 911 RSR n°911 de Nick Tandy (auteur de la pole), associé à Patrick Pilet, et n°912 de Vanthoor – Bamber.

Called in to replace Joey Hand, ill, Sébastien Bourdais lifted the No. 66 Ford GT – Ford Chip Ganassi into 4th position, just behind the No. 7 Corvette C4.R of Oliver Gavin.

Qualification ranking