BMW Z4 GTE on top in GTLM at Road America

EDWARDS SETS FASTEST TIME FOR BMW TEAM RLL

There’s something about qualifying at Road America that suits John Edwards. One day after scoring the pole for the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge event, Edwards returned to the top of the charts driving the No. 56 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE to the fastest time in TUDOR United SportsCar Championship GT Le Mans (GTLM) class qualifying for Sunday’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase (FOX Sports 1, 6:30 p.m. ET, SDD).

Edwards lapped the 4.048-mile, 14-turn road course in two minutes, 3.747 seconds (117.763 mph) for his first TUDOR Championship pole of the season, beating Jonathan Bomarito by a mere 0.066 seconds in the No. 93 SRT Motorsports Dodge Viper GTS-R co-driven by Kuno Wittmer at 2:03.813 (117.700 mph).

“It obviously doesn’t guarantee success, but it feels pretty good to have two poles in a weekend,” said Edwards, who led early, but finished third in a BMW M3 co-driven by series points leader Trent Hindman in the Continental Tire Challenge event. “It’s the first time I’ve done that, that’s a pretty cool feeling. The tires were coming in better and better each lap and everyone was cycling through. I came across in P1 and then kind of dropped back to second, third, fourth, then came around to P1 again.”

SRT Motorsports qualified second and third in GTLM with Marc Goossens driving the No. 91 Dodge Viper GTS-R to third with a lap of 2:03.930 (117.589 mph). The impressive qualifying effort for Dodge Viper SRT should come as no surprise after winning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway one race ago with Bomarito and Wittmer, and winning the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón event at Road America one year ago with Goossens and co-driver Dominik Farnbacher.

GTLM points leaders Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen qualified eighth in the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R. The duo enters Road America with a 13-point lead, 219-206, over Bomarito and Wittmer


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