TUDOR Championship: Porsche sweeps front row for GT showdown at VIR
Porsche has swept the front row for Sunday’s Oak Tree Grand Prix following a dominant 1-2 performance by Nick Tandy and Joerg Bergmeister in qualifying for the GT-only round at Virginia International Raceway.
Tandy took his No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR to a best lap of 1:42.532 in the 15-minute GT Le Mans qualifying session, outpacing teammate Bergmeister by 0.097 seconds.
It marked the Englishman’s second class pole of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season as he and co-driver Patrick Pilet search for their third consecutive victory.
The No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F458 Italia of Pierre Kaffer qualified third, with the pair of BMW Z4 GTE cars, qualified by Lucas Luhr and Bill Auberlen, completing the top five.
Dion von Moltke scored his third GT Daytona class pole in the last four qualifying attempts, following a fierce fight with Patrick Lindsey for top qualifying honors.
Von Moltke reeled off a best lap of 1:49.255 in his No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 LMS he’ll share with Christopher Haase in Sunday’s two-hour and 40-minute race.
Lindsey came within 0.010 seconds of pole in his No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT America, while Bill Sweedler put his No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 third on the grid in class.
Ben Keating (Riley Motorsports) and Christina Nielsen (TRG-AMR) completed the top five, with both cars having been restricted this weekend in the latest round of Balance of Performance adjustments.
Nielsen’s time came prior to a spin by the Dane, which resulted in cosmetic rear-end damage to the Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3.
Despite the incident, it still marked five different manufacturers in the top five.
The Oak Tree Grand Prix gets underway Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, live on FOX Sports 1.