Corvette Racing sweeps front row at VIR

By foxsports
Published

Corvette Racing has swept the front row for Sunday's Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway, with Jan Magnussen taking pole for the GT-only round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

The Dane reeled off a best lap of 1:41.557 in the No. 3 Corvette C7.R, edging out the sister No. 4 entry of GT Le Mans class championship leader Tommy Milner by just 0.011 seconds.

It marked the first class pole for Magnussen since Long Beach 2014 and second of the year for the No. 3 car, after co-driver Antonio Garcia's pole at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last month.

The No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT of Joey Hand qualified third, two-tenths behind, with a late improvement by Giancarlo Fisichella putting the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE fourth on the grid.

John Edwards completed the top-five in the No. 100 BMW Team RLL BMW M6 GTLM, with the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR of Nick Tandy sixth, as the quickest of the Porsche North America entries.

The entire nine-car GTLM field was separated by 0.829 seconds, in what's been a hot and humid weekend in Virginia. 

Madison Snow scored his first career pole, and the second of the season for Paul Miller in GT Daytona qualifying.

Snow took the No. 48 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 to a best lap of 1:44.956, edging out the No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS of Matt Bell by 0.291 seconds, in a session dominated by the mid-engined GT3 cars.

It was Lamborghini’s third class pole of the season and back-to-back top qualifying runs for the Paul Miller squad at the 3.27-mile VIR circuit, after Dion von Moltke’s pole in the team’s Audi last year.

Snow will share driving duties in tomorrow’s two-hour and 40-minute race with Bryan Sellers.

Cedric Sbirrazzuoli qualified a season-best third in the No. 27 Dream Racing Lamborghini, while Andrew Davis was fourth in the No. 6 Stevenson Audi, despite spinning during the session.

Corey Lewis made it three Lamborghinis in the top-five in class, in his No. 16 Change Racing entry.

Best of the non-mid engined cars was the No. 23 The Heart of Racing/AJR Porsche 911 GT3 R of Mario Farnbacher in sixth, ahead of the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper GT3-R of Ben Keating on seventh.

The Michelin GT Challenge at VIR gets underway Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET, live on FS1.