“On a street course and in a shorter race, track position is important. It will be nice to lead into Turn 1 as well as out of it, ” Franchitti said. “Any street course by its nature creates a premium on passing. Whenever you do make one, you know you ve done something right. We ll see a lot of passing tomorrow but hopefully not passing us. “
Rinaldo Capello put Audi Sport North America s lead Audi R10 TDI on the LMP1 pole and fourth overall on the grid. Capello s lap of 1:12.713 was 0.875 seconds back of Franchitti. He was, however, 0.198 seconds ahead of Emanuele Pirro in the sister Audi. Autocon Motorsports AER-powered Lola will start third in class.
Audi finished 1-2 overall two weeks ago at St. Petersburg s street circuit. Long Beach presents new challenges though with tighter turns and varying racing surfaces from concrete to asphalt and back again.
“For the moment for us this is completely different, ” Capello said. “At St. Petersburg we improved every time because of the grip. Tomorrow it won t be so easy to keep the pace of the LMP2 cars, which is completely different from St. Petersburg. It s difficult to feel the grip. Every corner has different grip and our car is very difficult to drive because we have such great torque. It makes it hard to drive though because of less grip. “
Oliver Gavin took pole position in GT1 for Corvette Racing on his first visit to Long Beach. Gavin became the third different Corvette driver to post a class pole this season. Jan Magnussen took the pole at Sebring in the season opener and Olivier Beretta was the fastest qualifier two weeks ago at St. Petersburg. The English driver turned in a lap of 1:18.145 to take the top spot over Magnussen.
“I like the track. It s a little different from St. Petersburg but it s very good, ” Gavin said. “I thought we would be up against it because both Jan and Johnny have been here before. I got lucky out there and got in a little bit of space and had luck with the traffic. “
Mika Salo gave Ferrari its fourth straight pole position in GT2 with a fast lap of 1:20.916 for Risi Competizione. The Finn was 0.293 second better than the Porsche of Patrick Long and Flying Lizard Motorsports. Salo and teammate Jaime Melo have won the first two events of the season over the other Porsche from the Flying Lizard stable.
“It s a new track for both me and Jaime. Introducing the track with two drivers was going to be tough, ” Salo said. “We decided to set the car up, not change anything and learn the track. “
Salo, at least, was a quick study. The qualifying session was a back-and-forth battle between both of the Risi Ferraris, the Flying Lizard Porsches and the Porsches from Tafel Racing. In all, the top eight cars were within a second of each other.
“It will be a tough race, ” Salo said. “The Porsches have been pushing us all year. They were very close and they are quicker on a straight line than us. The car is pretty comfortable and running well. ”
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