AUSTIN, Texas — There are only two drivers in this weekend’s IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge field competing at Circuit of The Americas whose first names start with the letter, “W.”
And those two drivers both took “W’s” in Friday night’s qualifying sessions to claim the pole positions for tomorrow’s doubleheader of races at the DuraMAX Grand Prix, part of the NASCAR at COTA weekend. Wyatt Brichacek earned the first poles of his VP Racing SportsCar Challenge career in the P3 class, while Westin Workman remained a perfect four-for-four in the 2026 GSX class.
Driving the No. 30 Toney Driver Development Ligier JS P325, Brichacek turned an overall fastest lap of 1 minute, 28.856 seconds (97.236 mph) to claim the pole for Saturday’s first 45-minute race of the day, which takes the green flag at 11:30 a.m. CT. Brichacek also will start from pole in Saturday’s nightcap scheduled for 5:30 p.m. CT with a second-best lap of 1:28.904 (97.183 mph) during the 15-minute session that finished in darkness.
“Yeah, it’s definitely tricky,” said Brichacek. “I luckily have some good night experience in my career, but I know this is really cool for the (other) VP guys – this is probably a lot of people’s first taste of the darkness. So, these cars are awesome at night. It’s really fun. They really come alive. If you can adjust quickly to it, it’s really rewarding.”
Brichacek’s qualifying performance – which bested the previous P3 track record of 1:30.042 set by Valentino Catalano last year by 1.156 seconds – came on the heels of a difficult practice session a few hours earlier on Friday.
“As a driver, I had a mistake and I did a little damage to the rear,” he explained. “Nothing major, but still unnecessary, and the team did a great job to get everything back together quickly and keep the car as fast as it was in practice.”
Brichacek will be joined on the front row for both races by Oscar Tunjo, who was second aboard the No. 1 Gebhardt Motorsports USA, Inc. Duqueine D08 with a best qualifying lap of 1:29.433 (96.608 mph) and a second-best lap of 1:29.544 (96.488 mph). Tunjo enters the weekend at the VP Racing SportsCar Challenge championship leader in the P3 class with victories in both races of the season-opening doubleheader at Daytona International Speedway in January. He started both of those races from the pole position.
Starting third for both races will be local driver Danny Soufi in the No. 11 PINAXIS-ZONE 4 Racing Duqueine D08. The Austin resident clocked a best lap of 1:29.835 (96.176 mph) and a second-best lap of 1:30.058 (95.938 mph).
On the surface, Workman’s 1.6-second margin over second-place for Race #1 and a 1.2-margin for Race #2 would seem like easy work for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based Toyota Development Driver.
But not unlike Brichacek’s challenges in Practice 2, Workman and his RAFA Racing crew had their hands full battling a misfire in both of the day’s practice sessions.
“It was actually in both practice sessions,” said Workman. “It was an issue we couldn’t figure out until before qualifying. Toyota did a great job coming over trying to help us, but we just couldn’t figure it out. We were getting a misfire at high RPMs, and the car just wasn’t running.
“It was getting worse as the session went on, and it actually just wasn’t drivable anymore. I only got one lap in the second practice session. And I think only a few laps in the first practice session. So yeah, we thankfully got it figured out.”
Figure out they did as Workman posted a best lap of 1:39.034 (87.242 mph) in the No. 8 RAFA Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 and a second-best lap of 1:39.695 (86.664 mph) to earn his third and fourth poles of the season. Workman heads into Saturday looking to keep his perfect record on the 2026 season intact after winning both GSX class races of January’s doubleheader in Daytona.
After topping the GSX time charts in Practice 2, Courtney Crone will start second in both races aboard her No. 35 CarBahn Motorsports BMW M4 GT4 EVO. Crone’s fastest lap was a 1:40.758 (85.750 mph) and her second-best lap was 1:40.906 (85.624 mph). She’s looking for her first podium results of the season on Saturday after posting a season-best result of fourth in Race 2 at Daytona.
Jon Brel will start third in GSX for Race #1 with a best lap of 1:42.021 (84.688 mph) in the No. 81 Kingpin Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2. Marc Austin, who hails from nearby Buda, Texas, starts third for Race #2 with a second-best lap of 1:42.422 (84.256 mph) in his No. 22 Mad Joker Racing by Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4.
