Road America ALMS: Pickett dominates, SRT Viper on GT pole again

Luhr's best effort of 1m51.460s was more than two seconds quicker than LMP1 rival Chris McMurry managed in the Dyson Lola-Mazda.

In the LMP2 segment, Marino Franchitti was a class apart in the lead Level 5 HPD, 0.8s quicker than Extreme Speed's Guy Cosmo and faster than the third of the LMP1s, the DeltaWing prototype.

IndyCar race winner and Ryan Briscoe stand-in Simon Pagenaud was third fastest in the second Level 5 car, having held an early provisional pole before Guy Cosmo and then Franchitti upped the ante.

Colin Braun's rapid start to the LMPC session culminated in him just holding on to the class pole.

Tristan Nunez initially led the chase to topple Braun, as the rest of the field slowly worked down to the CORE driver's benchmark of 1m57.630s.

Renger van der Zande and Bruno Junqueira were also involved at the sharp end, with the latter falling just 0.008s shy of pole. Nunez beat van der Zande to third by an even smaller margin, just three thousandths of a second.

VIPER ON TOP IN GT AGAIN

Jonathan Bomarito claimed a second GT pole in as many races for the SRT Viper, blowing away the rest of the field by 0.8s after an early battle for top spot with Corvette's Oliver Gavin.

Leh Keen's West/AJR Ferrari briefly held provisional pole having outpaced the lead Viper by eight thousandths of a second, before Bomarito improved first to a 2m03.481s and then nudged the benchmark further out of reach improving to 2m03.410s.

Antonio Garcia shot up to second in the session's climax in the other Corvette, 0.06s faster than Keen.

Spencer Pumpelly claimed the GTC pole, the Flying Lizard Porsche driver's 2m11.931s almost half a second quicker than Sean Edwards could manage in second.

Early-session pacesetter Damien Faulkner was shuffled back to fourth by Jan Heylen right at the end.

Pos  Cl   Drivers                     Team/Car                   Time       Cl gap
 1.  P1   Graf/Luhr                   Pickett HPD                1m51.460s
 2.  P1   Burgess/McMurry             Dyson Lola-Mazda           1m53.580s  +2.120s
 3.  P2   Tucker/Franchitti/Gonzalez  Level 5 HPD                1m54.806s
 4.  P1   Meyrick/Legge               DeltaWing                  1m55.362s  +3.902s
 5.  P2   Sharp/Cosmo                 Extreme Speed HPD          1m55.622s  +0.816s
 6.  P2   Tucker/Pagenaud             Level 5 HPD                1m55.793s  +0.987s
 7.  P2   Brown/van Overbeek          Extreme Speed HPD          1m56.085s  +1.279s
 8.  PC   Bennett/Braun               CORE FLM                   1m57.630s
 9.  PC   Junqueira/Ende              RSR FLM                    1m57.712s  +0.082s
10.  PC   Nunez/Shears                Performance Tech FLM       1m57.885s  +0.255s
11.  PC   Schultis/van der Zande      DragonSpeed FLM            1m57.912s  +0.282s
12.  PC   Marcelli/Cumming            BAR1 FLM                   1m58.399s  +0.769s
13.  PC   Mitchell/French             BAR1 FLM                   2m00.352s  +2.722s
14.  PC   Guasch/Cheng                PR1 Mathiasen FLM          2m00.478s  +2.848s
15.  GT   Bomarito/Wittmer            SRT Viper                  2m03.410s
16.  GT   Magnussen/Garcia            Corvette                   2m04.212s  +0.802s
17.  GT   Keen/Bell                   AJR/West Ferrari           2m04.269s  +0.859s
18.  GT   Gavin/Milner                Corvette                   2m04.277s  +0.867s
19.  GT   Miller/Holzer               Miller Porsche             2m04.347s  +0.937s
20.  GT   Farnbacher/Goossens         SRT Viper                  2m04.427s  +1.017s
21.  GT   Auberlen/Martin             RLL BMW                    2m04.609s  +1.199s
22.  GT   Long/Kimber-Smith           CORE Porsche               2m04.619s  +1.209s
23.  GT   Muller/Edwards              RLL BMW                    2m04.630s  +1.220s
24.  GT   Beretta/Malucelli           Risi Ferrari               2m04.911s  +1.501s
25.  GT   Henzler/Sellers             Falken Porsche             2m06.088s  +2.678s
26.  GTC  Canache/Pumpelly            Flying Lizard Porsche      2m11.931s
27.  GTC  Cisneros/Edwards            NGT Porsche                2m12.386s  +0.455s
28.  GTC  Hedlund/Heylen              JDX Porsche                2m12.403s  +0.472s
29.  GTC  Keating/Faulkner            TRG Porsche                2m12.489s  +0.558s
30.  GTC  Neiman/von Moltke           Flying Lizard Porsche      2m12.844s  +0.913s
31.  GTC  MacNeil/Bleekemolen         Alex Job Porsche           2m12.989s  +1.058s
32.  GTC  Dempsey/Lally               Dempsey Del Piero Porsche  2m13.047s  +1.116s
33.  GTC  Courtney/Snow               TRG Porsche                2m15.073s  +3.142s