Pumpelly, Leist Snatch Sebring Pole Positions
Photo: Fred Hardy/SRO
Spencer Pumpelly and Matheus Leist grabbed pole position for the fourth and fifth rounds of the Pirelli GT4 America season at Sebring International Raceway.
Qualifying was decided across two 15-minute sessions, with the first defining the grid for Race 1 and the second session setting the running order for Race 2.
RS1 driver Pumpelly grabbed pole for Race 1 in the No. 028 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport with a 2:10.740 lap time. Pumpelly was the only driver to dip below a 2:11 lap time in the opening qualifying session.
Silver class championship leader Westin Workman was 0.528 seconds behind in the No. 68 RAFA Racing Team Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 that he shares with Tyler Gonzalez.
Third place for Race 1 was seized by Kevin Boehm in Auto Technic Racing’s BMW M4 GT4 EVO. Boehm won both of the GT4 America rounds at Sebring last year, driving alongside Kenton Koch in a Random Vandals Racing BMW.
The No. 131 Advance Motorsports McLaren Artura GT4 completed the second row, ahead of Allen Patten in Dome Motorsports’ Mercedes-AMG GT4.
ACI Motorsports’ Porsche will accompany Dome’s Mercedes-AMG on the third row for Race 1.
A pair Random Vandals BMWs rounded out the top eight, with the No. 98 car in seventh ahead of the No. 94 machine.
Despite taking pole for Race 2, Nolasport’s No. 47 Porsche will start down in ninth place for the opening contest of the weekend, ahead of Am class leaders ACI Motorsports with its No. 21 BMW.
Nolasport’s Leist took a convincing pole position for the second race on Saturday. The Brazilian managed a 2:10.392 lap time, which was the fastest overall in qualifying.
He was 0.395 seconds ahead of Luca Mars in the RS1 Porsche, which took second place overall and the top spot in the Silver class rankings.
RAFA Racing’s Toyota finished the second session in third place with Gonzalez at the wheel, just ahead of Michael Cooper in the Blackdog Racing McLaren.
Last year’s Pro-Am drivers’ champion Kenton Koch finished fifth in the No. 94 Random Vandals BMW, ahead of the sister No. 98 entry.
ACI Motorsports will once again lead the Am class field for Race 2, but this time from 17th position overall.
Race 1 kicks off on Friday at 5:40 p.m. EST, with Race 2 commencing at 12:45 p.m. EST on Saturday.
Both 60-minute races will be streamed live on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and will feature in FS1’s highlights package which airs Sun. May 17 at 6:30 a.m. EST.
RESULTS: Qualifying 1/Qualifying 2
Source: Sports Car 365