Risi Competizione's Jaime Melo was at his brilliant best in a thrilling GT qualifying for Saturday's Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio, claiming GT2 pole position on the last lap of the 20-minute session.
His best time of 1 minute 20.025 seconds edged out the competition in what turned out to be an extremely close-fought session.
It is Melo's first official pole position of the season, although not the first time that he has set a pole-winning time. His Sebring time was negated when the prototype qualifying session was abandoned, and at Salt Lake City he set exactly the same lap time as one of his competitors but, as it was later in the qualifying session, he missed out on pole.
In blisteringly hot temperatures, the Brazilian put his Risi
Ferrari, which is carrying a new suspension package from Michelotto, on the front row of the GT2 grid after just four laps and then came into the pits to make a small adjustment to his tyre pressures.
When he got back on track, he was pushing hard for another hot lap and briefly went off track in Turn 13.
Knowing he could still go quicker, but with only four minutes remaining in the session, he returned to the pits for a quick clean up of the car and returned to the action – still with the same tyres.
"I love this track!" said Melo, who will share the #62 car in Saturday's race with Mika Salo. "We had some problems with the car in the last practice session and I didn't know if I could do pole. I tried my best though - and got it.
"The team did a very good job and also the Michelin tyres. I got the pole on my last lap and the tyres were still there."
Patrick Friesacher, who was qualifying the team's second Ferrari 430 GT, meanwhile will start from sixth place on the grid, having set a best time of 1 minute 20.844 seconds.
Despite being only tenths of a second away from the front of the grid, he was however, slightly disappointed.
"It wasn't a bad session, but on my quickest lap I lot the rear end of the car briefly and lost about three tenths of a second.
