SEBRING, Fla. – Bijoy Garg is two-for-two in IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge qualifying.
After claiming the pole position for the series debut in January at Daytona, Garg made the most of Saturday afternoon’s abbreviated qualifying session at Sebring International Raceway, putting the No. 3 Jr III Racing Ligier JS P320 at the head of a spectacular, 30-car field for both of Sunday’s 45-minute races.
Garg’s best lap was 1 minute, 56.854 seconds (115.221 mph) to claim the pole for Race 1 tomorrow morning and his second-fastest lap of 1:57.099 (114.980 mph) was quick enough to put him on pole for Race 2 tomorrow afternoon. The LMP3 field had a substantially reduced qualifying session due to a red flag midway through when the No. 54 MLT Motorsports Ligier of Adrian Kunzle stopped on course in Turn 10.
“Definitely, a really good lap and a really good car by the team,” Garg said. “Jr III Racing did a fantastic job just getting this car ready and ensuring that we’re in the position to get pole. It was a bit of a stressful qualy, obviously, with two timed laps, basically, at speed. Just hard to get in a rhythm, but glad we could still get it.”
Joining Garg on the front row for both races will be Dan Goldburg in the No. 73 JDC MotorSports Duqueine D08 with an overall best qualifying lap of 1:57.415 (114.671 mph). Goldburg heads into Sunday’s races as the LMP3 class points leaders after sweeping both races of the season-opening doubleheader at Daytona.
Goldburg is 60 points ahead of Brian Thienes, who qualified fifth in the No. 77 Forte Racing Powered by USRT Ligier, and 140 points in front of Garg. Canadian racer Antonio Serravalle qualified third in the No. 18 Muehlner Motorsports America Duqueine at 1:58.351 (113.764 mph) ahead of Courtney Crone in the No. 99 Forty7 Motorsports Duqueine at 1:59.014 (113.130 mph).
In the GSX class, Gregory Liefooghe placed the No. 43 Stephen Cameron Racing BMW M4 GT4 on the class pole position for both races with a best lap of 2:10.285 (103.343 mph) and a second-best lap of 2:10.325 (103.311 mph) in the 15-minute qualifying session. Liefooghe was fast throughout Saturday, leading both practice sessions prior to qualifying as well.
“We were way off in Daytona,” Liefooghe said. “We’ve done a little bit of testing since then, and it seems we were starting to be in the window of that car. Steve Cameron’s always tuning on the car and giving us the best car possible, and Sebring is one of my favorite tracks, so it seems to have all clicked together.”
Joining Liefooghe on the GSX front row will be Luca Mars, who celebrated his 17th birthday earlier this week. Mars posted a best lap of 2:11.001 (102.778 mph) in the No. 59 KOHR MOTORSPORTS Ford Mustang GT4. Francis Selldorff rounded out the top three in GSX with a best lap of 2:11.103 (102.698 mph) in the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT4.
After taking victories in both races at Daytona, GSX points leader Billy Griffin qualified 18th in class on Saturday in the No. 14 KOHR MOTORSPORTS Mustang GT4.
Sunday’s doubleheader kicks off with Race 1 taking the green flag at 8 a.m ET. The second 45-minute race of the day goes green at 1:30 p.m. ET. Live Timing & Scoring data from both races is available on IMSA.com.