At back-to-back events, Ryan Yardley and Topp Racing placed first in Porsche Carrera Cup North America qualifying, this time at Watkins Glen International.
Earning the Race Brew Pole Award, the New Zealander bested the Pro class field of 17 Porsche 992 GT3 Cup cars with a time of one minute, 47.349 seconds, more than a tenth quicker than Jimmy Llibre in second place at 1:47.503.
Yardley entered the Watkins Glen event with momentum after qualifying first and winning his first race of the season at Montréal one week ago.
“Just get a good start and lead into Turn 1, and settle in from there,” said Yardley of his race strategy at Watkins Glen. “The starts have always been quite interesting at Watkins. The starts in general are always pretty exciting, so the goal is just to lead into Turn 1 and see how the race unfolds from there.”
Behind Yardley and Llibre in third will be championship leader and Race 2 winner from Montréal, Riley Dickinson.
In the Pro-Am category, Alan Metni charged to the front with his Kellymoss team to claim pole position. Metni had previously finished fourth and third in the opening two practice sessions at The Glen on Thursday.
“Watkins is awesome, the fans here are wonderful,” Metni said after qualifying. “This is one of the great, iconic racetracks in the country and I just love being here.
“I’m here to race and I want to race who’s around me.”
Championship leader JP Martinez posted the second quickest time ahead of Patrick Mulcahy in third.
Masters class championship leader, Scott Blind, was quickest in his field to start first for Race 1 on Friday and remains undefeated in pole positions so far in 2025.
“I am (right where I want to be),” said Blind. “I just want to get a clean start, stay up there with the Pro-Ams. We’ve been qualifying around them all year, so we’re going to stay with them here at Watkins Glen.
“We went on a three-tire strategy. It’s the first time we’ve done that and it really panned out. The first lap, we went on all three and we got the lap. Good on traffic, so it was all good.”
Blind’s time of 1:49.516 was nearly three tenths faster than that of Peter Atwater in second place and half a second quicker than Rob Walker in third.
Race 1 for Porsche Carrera Cup North America at Watkins Glen International goes green later today at 2 p.m. ET, while the second race of the weekend follows on tomorrow morning at 8 a.m.
All Carrera Cup races, including replays from Watkins Glen International, will be shown live on IMSA and Porsche Motorsport North America YouTube Channels, IMSA TV, Peacock, and the Porsche Motorsport North America social channels on Facebook, Linkedin, Threads and X.
