For Albuquerque, pole is its own reward; for Hyett it’s a chance to make amends (2024)

Granted, Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti hasn’t had its best season; still, the celebration for Filipe Albuquerque’s pole for today’s race seemed particularly jubilant. Albuquerque offered an explanation:

“It doesn’t matter how many races you win, or championships or pole positions. I think we are in the sport because we love it — and I’m in the sport to win,” he said. “And when I achieve that … you know, the road is long — working, taking many flights, being away from the family. There is a lot of dedication. So when we achieve, we need to enjoy life. I really feel like that — I need to be happy with little wins. These little wins help me to be more motivated for the next challenge and life is better.

“Pole means nothing … yeah, maybe. But I’m just happy and that will carry on a smile through the day. That does not mean that I’m not going to be working tonight and going again. We lose much more than we win. So if we don’t enjoy the small highs and the wins, then life is just miserable. I’m a happy person, so I always like to see the positives on it.”

Of course it was a double celebration as both WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06s will start on the front row today. But Albuquerque’s quarter-second margin over teammate Jordan Taylor was still impressive.

“I love to qualify because the car will never be better — low fuel, new tires, clean track, you know the sunset is going a little bit … the car will never be faster,” Albuquerque said. “That feeling for me is always so, so special, to drive a fast car in its prime. I just love it.”

PJ Hyett has four consecutive poles in LMP2, but is still trying to convert a P1 start into victory for the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA. Part of that is start penalties in the last two races — drive-throughs for having too big a gap to the GTP field at Watkins Glen, and for changing lanes before start/finish at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. So how does he expect to handle today’s start?

“I won’t get a penalty, for one. I think I’ve gotten all of them now,” he said. “So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…

“The tricky thing with the starts in LMP2 on pole is the GTPs are tricky on cold tires, so we’re right up into the back of them when there’s no gap. It’s honestly why I left the gap at Watkins; unfortunately I left too big of a gap. So yeah, not screwing up is step one. And then staying out of trouble is step two and then I’d like to keep the car up front for the entire race.”

Another record crowd?

Road America hasn’t yet released any attendance numbers, but the crowd for the IMSA SportsCar Weekend seems larger than last year, which was a record.

Big off for No. 24 BMW

Jesse Krohn had a wild ride on Saturday when the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 slid off in The Kink, an area of the track that seems to have had a higher number of incidents than usual this weekend. While Krohn appeared to avoid contact with the wall, the ride through the grass was rough enough to send Krohn to the infield care center for evaluation. The team missed qualifying while the No. 24 was getting a new rear end.

Tire allocations

GTP and LMP2 teams have three sets of hard-compound Michelin tires to use during qualifying and race out of a six-set event allocation. GTD PRO and GTD teams also have a maximum of six sets of tires for the weekend.

Drive time

Minimum drive time for LMP2 is 60 minutes, while the minimum for GTD is 45 minutes. GTP and GTD PRO have 10-minute minimum drive times.

How to watch

The 2h40m race will be broadcast live on Peaco*ck beginning at 3 p.m. ET. Outside the U.S., it can be seen on IMSA.tv and YouTube.com/IMSAOfficial. Audio commentary is available on IMSA.com and RadioLeMans.com. SiriusXM live race coverage begins at 3 p.m. (XM 206, Web/App 996).

Road America, IMSA, WeatherTech Sportscar Championship