Lewis delivers Alfa Romeo’s first IMSA Challenge pole

Florida’s own Tim Lewis made IMSA Michelin Challenge history on Thursday by earning the first every pole position for Alfa Romeo.
Piloting the #5 KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering Alfa Romeo Giulietta in the TCR class, Lewis edged out the rest of the 18-car field with a qualifying time of 1:59.296. For the second consecutive year in this car, Lewis will be co-driving with Roy Block.

“It was a trying offseason, a lot of development was put into the car after a difficult 2019 season,” said Lewis. “We’re really proud to have the local Alfa Romeo of Daytona on the car and we’re looking forward to a good race tomorrow. To be honest, we were pretty off in the wet and it was mixed conditions. We went out in the 15-minute session before qualifying and it was drying up. I knew we needed to go to dry’s obviously and the track dried up just enough in one lane to get a good lap in.”

Hot on their tails with the second-best lap was the #21 Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai Veloster N of Harry Gottsacker and 2019 TCR co-champion Mark Wilkins. Starting third in its IMSA debut will be Team Prémat’s #18 Audi RS 3 LMS, qualified by rookie Stephen Vajda and co-driven by Alexandre Prémat.
Mike La Marra and Brian Henderson qualified the fastest of the Honda cars in fourth and fifth positions respectively, while the other reigning champion Michael Lewis will start from the sixth spot of the grid in the Hyundai that was qualified by Mason Filippi.
The 4-hour race will kick off today at 13:10 local time (18:10 GMT/19:10 CET)

4H Daytona - Qualifying
1:59.296 – KMW-TMR, Alfa Romeo Giulietta (Block/T. Lewis)
1:59.668 – BHA Autosport, Hyundai Veloster N (Wilkins/Gottsacker)
1:59.817 – Team Prémat, Audi RS 3 LMS (Prémat/Vajda)
1:59.893 – LA Honda World, Honda Civic Type R (La Marra/Pombo)
1:59.970 – Atlanta Speedwerks, Honda Civic Type R (Henderson/Lamb)

Picture: IMSA/LAT Images