WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – From the opening minutes of qualifying for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, it was apparent the real question to settle was who would start second on the grid to the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R.
British driver Jack Aitken continued a perfect weekend atop the speed charts, ultimately claiming Saturday’s Motul Pole Award with a Grand Touring Prototype class (GTP) record lap of 1 minute, 31.284 seconds (134.544 mph) around the famous 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International. Aitken’s lap eclipsed the previous record of 1:31.558 set by Renger van der Zande during qualifying last year.
It’s the fourth pole of Aitken’s career, second of the 2026 season and first at The Glen. It was also the 35th pole position for Cadillac since 2017.
The GTP championship leader will share the front row with the defending race winning No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06. Tom Blomqvist was 0.197 seconds off Aitken’s best time with a lap of 1:31.481 (134.254 mph). Louis Deletraz was third fastest in the No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac, only 0.006 seconds behind Blomqvist’s effort at 1:31.487 (134.245).
“I think all of Whelen Cadillac have been on a great roll, so nothing has really changed in the last few races,” Aitken said, acknowledging the team is riding some good momentum right now.
The No. 31 has finished on podium every race this season and is riding a modern-day GTP record seven consecutive podium finishes dating back to the final two races of the 2025 season.
“This is certainly a place I wanted to get pole since we came so close last year,” said Aitken. “I wasn’t massively confident and try not to be too optimistic going into these things. We saw the (No.) 5 (JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963) was very quick in (Practice) 2 and a bunch of other cars in the mix as well and it’s very easy to make a mistake around here. It invites you to push a lot and you can trip over yourself. So, I just try to take it steady and get a clean lap in and that turned out to be quite a good one.”
The session marked the first time around the 11-turn circuit following a course modification that was necessitated after an incident in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race earlier Saturday afternoon. The curbing at the entrance to the track’s famed “inner loop” chicane came up toward the end of that two-hour race requiring track workers to remove it.
Ultimately qualifying for the six-hour race was pushed back about three hours to allow for repairs. While the GTD PRO and GTD class drivers said it was a notable change in the feel of the track, Aitken downplayed the effect for the GTP cars.
“It was okay, it’s a tough one to adjust going into qualifying – any type of track changes halfway through a weekend is never ideal but I think IMSA did a good job under the circumstances,” Aitken said. “It hasn’t changed the line a huge amount for us. Some of the GT guys can cut it a lot more now but we don’t have the clearance for that. … I’m not going to be the first try it.”
Of note, the front row sets up an interesting storyline between the Cadillac and Acura that essentially settled the overall win last year on a dramatic final three minutes of the six-hour race. The race-leading No. 31 Cadillac had to peel off track and pit for fuel before the final restart leaving Blomqvist to take the lead on track with only two laps remaining to claim the trophy in the No. 60 Acura.
“It was obviously a tough race in a way,” Blomqvist said, of the many yellows and changing weather conditions between a wet and dry track. He said the team’s plan all along was to save fuel and ultimately they had just over one percent of fuel remaining post-race.
“That whole thing at the end just happened at the right time,” Blomqvist said. “It was a pretty good job from the crew to kind of make that call early enough. Stuff like that doesn’t happen at the time, it happens earlier.
“A number of factors that actually went into that victory, but luck, obviously that’s racing. You’ve got to make sure you’re on the right side of it. So it was really cool.”
LMP2: Clarke Scores Third Career Pole in LMP2 Qualifying
In one of the more dramatic qualifying sessions of the day, American Jeremy Clarke claimed the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) Motul Pole Award in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07 setting a best lap of 1 minute, 35.124 seconds (129.113 mph) with just over two minutes remaining in the 15-minute session.
Clarke’s work bettered the mark set by PJ Hyett in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07 by only 0.164 of a second. Hyett had a tall task to claim pole anyway having received a penalty for a practice session incident earlier in the day. Still, Clarke said he fully expected a day’s long battle with the No. 99 considering how tight the 11-car class is.
“PJ is very strong and you saw in P2 [second practice] we were separated by only three-thousandths of a second,” Clarke said. “He and I are always very close and it’s just always going to be a battle between us for sure.”
The effort marks both Clarke’s and the team’s third pole position. The top four cars in the LMP2 class were separated by only 0.753 seconds.
“Great start for the team and I think it’s going to come down to surviving those first couple stints tomorrow,” said Clarke, who noted that unlike the GTP class, the new curbing – or lack thereof – in the inner loop would change the line substantially.
“I think with the new line we can be a bit more aggressive going into the brake zone where we have a bit more space now,” Clarke allowed.
The defending Watkins Glen-winning No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA LMP2 07 will start third in the 11-car class.
Green flag Sunday is 12:10 noon (ET) on Peacock, YouTube and IMSA.TV.
By David Phillips
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Vasser Sullivan Racing w/Dreyer & Reinbold’s Jack Hawksworth laid down a sizzling lap in the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 midway through today’s qualifying session to claim the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) Motul Pole Award for tomorrow’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
Although Hawksworth’s best lap of 1 minute, 43.701 seconds (118.434 mph) was a comfortable four tenths of a second quicker than his competition for most of the session, his qualifying run was not without its challenges.
A shuffling of the day’s schedule resulted in the session kicking-off some three hours later than planned, putting the dozen GTD PRO cars on track in the cool of the evening rather than the late afternoon heat.
“Definitely a strange day,” said Hawksworth, who set a new qualifying record in the cooler conditions that beat the previous mark of 1:44.203 set in 2024.
“It feels like we’ve been here for 24 hours. We practiced in the morning and then had to sit around for seven or eight hours before we qualified.”
What’s more, at the end of a long day Hawksworth and company had to deal with what amounted to an unfamiliar track, given that some curbing on the entrance to the Bus Stop (Turn 5) had been removed after it began coming apart during the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race earlier in the day.
“The changes to the Bus Stop were pretty dramatic,” Hawksworth said. “So going out there trying to figure out the track and understand how much curbing to take was interesting . . .
“It was wildly different, it changed the whole feel,” he continued. “Now you can almost carry the car out to the fence, kind of like the NASCAR guys do, and it doesn’t affect the car. (But) you’ve got that guardrail and normally when we get that close to the guardrail it’s second or third gear corners so it’s easy to judge where the side of the car is. But when you’re in fourth gear entering the corner at 110 mph it’s a challenge.”
Doubtless the Vasser Sullivan Lexus team had a few uncomfortable moments in the waning minutes of the session as, first, Harry King posted a 1:43.914 in AO Racing’s No. 77 “Rexy” Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) to halve Hawksworth’s margin. Then Neil Verhagen nearly joined the “1:43 club” with a 1:44.089 in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO, as all were under the previous record lap.
And while no other car or driver threatened for pole, when the checkered flag waved the first six cars representing six different manufacturers were within eight tenths of a second of the No. 14 Lexus, which Hawksworth will share Sunday with Ben Barnicoat.
This bodes for a hectic six hours of racing, according to Hawksworth, who earned his 17th pole in IMSA competition and, in doing so, broke a tie with Ben Keating for the most pole positions in the modern era of IMSA.
“A lot can happen. You want to be up front and out of (the chaos),” he said. “There will be laps behind the safety car, there will be decisions made on the pit, there will be decisions made on the racetrack and hopefully we can make good ones and hopefully win the race.”
GTD: Heart of Racing Team Up Front by Points
Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) qualifying ultimately proved anticlimactic thanks to a red flag that effectively ended the session before the guaranteed minimum green flag time of running had been completed. Ten minutes are required to be green in the 15-minute session. Per IMSA rules, the 20-car field grid for tomorrow’s race will be based on the current team championship points standings.
Thus the Heart of Racing Team’s No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo will start first beside Turner Motorsport’s No. 96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO with the No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 of Vasser Sullivan Racing w/Dreyer & Reinbold lining up third.
“I don’t think I’d call it pole,” said Heart of Racing’s Zacharie Robichon, who along with Tom Gamble won in GTD last year with third driver Casper Stevenson. It’s Robichon and Gamble’s new 2026 teammate – Eduardo “Dudu” Barrichello – who leads the GTD driver points entering Sunday’s race and was key in this car starting first.
“I think we’re just starting from first. It’s definitely too bad that we weren’t able to get a proper session in because I think there were a couple of cars that would have battled it out.
“But it’s a great place to start. Obviously, there’s a benefit to leading the championship when things do go awry. So, we’ll go for a good clean race. It can get pretty chaotic here, so I think if we can keep our nose clean, we’ll be happy.”
The reason for the red flag in-session was an incident for the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. The car entered the weekend fourth in the team points.
Sunday’s race goes green at 12:10 p.m. ET, streaming on Peacock in the U.S. and internationally via IMSA’s Official YouTube channel and IMSA.TV.
The IMSA race weekend concludes tomorrow, Sunday, June 28, with the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. For more information about Watkins Glen International or to purchase tickets for Sunday’s race, please visit www.theglen.com.
