The top six cars - completed by the AGR and Fernandez Acuras - qualified within 0.538 seconds of each other. Second in P1, and seventh overall, was Audi team-mate 'Dindo' Capello, who shares this weekend with Pirro, while Intersport Racing's Lola B06/10-AER qualified third in class courtesy of Clint Field.
Corvette Racing's Johnny O'Connell continued a dominant weekend in the Corvette C6.R that he will pilot with Jan Magnussen, exacting come measure of revenge in the process by claiming the GT1 class pole that he lost last year after failing a post-qualifying stall test. There were no such problems this time around.
"It was a good run for us," he said, "It was challenging because we were running on a tyre that we hadn't been on all weekend due to the heat on the track. We didn't go as quick as we did in practice, but it was still good enough to redeem ourselves."
It was O'Connell's first pole position since Petit Le Mans in 2006, but he and Magnussen have been the quickest GT1 pairing in each session this weekend. Having won four of the first five races this year made it a bit easier to talk about what happened in qualifying here last year.
"In 1999, Jan and I were team-mates in prototypes and, in my mind, we were the strongest pairing," O'Connell said, "But we had some of the same luck as we had last year. Mid-Ohio is a great example - it's little things like that and mistakes we aren't making. We're getting the breaks and taking advantage."
The sister Corvette of Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta will line up one place behind the O'Connell/Magnussen entry, in 15th spot overall, in the absence of any other GT1 opposition.
Jaime Melo took his first GT2 pole position of the season, as Risi Competizione continued its upward trend. The Brazilian's late lap of 1min 20.025secs in his
Ferrari F430 GT nipped Farnbacher Loles Racing's Dirk Werner and his Porsche 911 GT3 RSR by 0.174secs.
