Kiwi Earl Bamber will start on the front row as Petit Le Mans gets underway this morning, starting second on the grid in the #02 Cadillac DPi-V.R, Tom Blomqvist taking pole for Acura.
The time set by Blomqvist, a 1 minute 8.55, was enough to pip Bamber by .233 of a second to put them in prime position come race start.
The #60 MSR Acura, driven by Blomqvist, Oliver Jarvis and joined by Helio Castroneves for this race, needs to finish ahead of their #10 sister car of Ricky Taylor, Felipe Albuquerque and Kiwi Brendon Hartley to claim the 2022 IMSA DPi class.
The #10 went into the round 19 points to the good over the #60, pole for the latter reducing this deficit to just 14 points. Ultimately, it comes down to a winner-take-all scenario for the final race of the season.
Taylor, Albuquerque and Hartley will start third on the grid for the 10 hour enduro.
Bamber currently sits fourth in the championship and partners Alex Lynn in the series, IndyCar driver Ryan Hunter-Reay filling the third seat for the longer event.
There is also one other Kiwi on the grid, Scott Dixon, as he fills in the third seat for the #01 Cadillac DPi-V.R with full-time drivers Sebastian Bourdais and Renger van der Zande. They will start fifth.
Both Cadillac’s are out of championship contention heading into the event.
As one of several endurance races on the IMSA calendar, Petit Le Mans will see a massive 43 cars across five classes complete 10 hours of racing around Michelin Raceway at Road Atlanta.
Whilst Blomqvist and co have started off strongly with pole, a lot is left on the table with such a large field in such a long race, Blomqvist recognising a big job is to be done come race time.
“Basically, I knew we needed to out-qualify them just to make our lives a little bit less difficult come tomorrow,” Blomqvist said in reference to the battle with their teammates.
“We did that, but it’s 10 hours of racing. You know what it’s like here in IMSA. I’m predicting quite a lot of yellows and stuff like that. It’s going to be a proper dogfight to the end.”
The event also sees out the DPi era of hyper-cars in IMSA as they switch to LMDh-spec next year, parallel to what is used in the World Endurance Championship.
Racing begins at 5am NZ time, finishing at 3pm. The entire event will be shown live on Sky Sport Popup 1 (600)
