DETROIT – General Motors basked in the Motor City sunshine Friday as its entries earned the Motul Pole Award for both IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes competing at the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic.
Earl Bamber was fastest in both practice sessions in the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R, and he converted that speed into the overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class pole. Meanwhile, Alexander Sims sped to the top starting spot for Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports in the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class.
Bamber was delighted with the balance in his Cadillac after no less than three and half hours of practice time. The 35-year-old New Zealander was correct in his confidence that he could break Nick Tandy’s two-year old track-record for the tricky 1.645-mile street course along the Detroit Riverwalk in the shadow of the Renaissance Center, GM’s former corporate headquarters.
Bamber was one of five drivers who lapped under one minute, 6 seconds, finally lowering the benchmark to 1:05.313 with four and a half minutes remaining in the 15-minute session, for an average speed of 90.670 miles per hour. That was quick enough to top Tandy's previous track record of 1:05.390.
Bamber and his competitors might have gone even faster, before the session met a premature end. Felipe Nasr ran wide at Turn 1 in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 and his teammate Kevin Estre in the No. 6 Porsche slapped the wall in avoidance.
Louis Deletraz secured the outside front row staring berth in the No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R (1:05.635/90.226 mph), ahead of Nick Yelloly in the No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 and Marco Wittmann in the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8 fielded by BMW M Team WRT.
This is Bamber’s third pole position in IMSA competition, but first in GTP or any prototype class. His last start from the top spot came in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class at the 2015 Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
“It’s been a great weekend so far,” Bamber said. “I loved the old Belle Isle track, but as soon as I drove here, I really clicked with this place and we decided to shake it up a bit this weekend and have myself run the qualifying, and it’s really nice to get my first GTP pole.
“The car has been fantastic all weekend, and obviously it’s really cool for Cadillac to get pole position at our home race – and Corvette too, with ‘Simmsy,’” he added. “Hopefully we can just run away and hide and stay out of trouble. But we know this race has brought a lot of surprises over the years.”
The difficulty of the “concrete canyon” street course in the heart of downtown Detroit was on display during practice, when no fewer than 40 reports of spins or runs down escape roads were reported. But qualifying was clean until the Porsche Penske drivers experienced the double disaster that will leave them starting eighth and 10th in the 11-car GTP field.
The No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 qualified by Tijmen van der Helm and co-driver Laurin Heinrich may look to pull a strategic gamble to leapfrog from P11 and repeat its last-to-first win achieved last time out at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca; Heinrich enters this race at Detroit atop the GTP points.
But Bamber and his co-driver Jack Aitken are on a hot streak, starting the 2026 season with four consecutive podiums after wrapping up ’25 with a pair of wins. Detroit would be the ideal venue to find their way back to the top step of the podium. Aitken entered the weekend second in points, 21 behind Heinrich, and with Friday’s qualifying result is unofficially only six back to start Saturday’s 100-minute race.
“We’ve sort of got a motto in the team that if we keep knocking on the door, if we’re in that top two or three all the time, then eventually it opens,” Bamber said. “We’re racing against some great teams. It’s never easy to win one of these things, but we’re staring up front and hopefully we can lead and execute.
“We just have to our thing the best we can,” he smiled. “Today we converted it; we’ll see if we can do the same thing tomorrow.”
The Chevrolet Detroit SportsCar Classic will be broadcast live on NBC and streamed domestically on Peacock, with the green flag set for 4:10 p.m. ET Saturday, May 30. International streaming options include the official IMSA YouTube Channel and IMSA.TV.
