Patron Highcroft Racing's David Brabham will line up on the front row of the grid for round six of the American Le Mans Series, the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio, on Saturday.
The Australian, who lives in Henley-on-Thames, led the 20-minute qualifying session before finishing second just two tenths adrift of Gil de Ferran.
Fresh from his pole position and second win of the season last weekend in the Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock, the team's home track, the 42 year-old topped the Mid-Ohio leaderboard with a time of 1 minute 08.193 seconds for several laps.
In a thrilling three-way battle for pole, with Timo Bernhard in the Penske Racing Porsche lurking in third, de Ferran posted a time of 1m 07.969s towards the end of the session that could not be challenged.
"I am really happy," said Brabham as he cooled down after the 20-minute session. "Of course, after sitting on the pole at the Northeast Grand Prix last weekend, it would have been nice to have been on top again, but seeing how we were struggling throughout practice, running in sixth and seventh position, we feel really good about tonight's result. It was a great climb to come up from where we were.
"The Acura was very good and we have no major issues. The Patron Highcroft Racing team have done a fantastic job of developing the car and it just keeps getting better.
"The Michelin tyres have really performed consistently throughout the week. We'll probably have a few small changes to the set-up for the race, but it was a great effort by the team to get us to where we landed and deliver a great car for qualifying.
"Our qualifying run was the best of the week so far, so we are confident in the knowledge that we have a good race-day car underneath us. We are looking strong for the race but anything can happen and we'll just be aiming to keep it clean and get to the finish.
