BOWMANVILLE, Ont., CANADA (July 13, 2024) – For the first time since 2016 the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin turned qualifying laps at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP) on Saturday. Aaron Jeansonne (No. 24 JTR Motorsports Engineering) took provisional pole with a new qualifying lap record of 1:31.736. He will share the front row of the grid with Connor Zilisch (No. 72 BSI Racing) who qualified second by a mere .0031-seconds as the first 11 qualifiers were all within one second of Jeansonne’s record time.
The Mazda MX-5 Cup car has been massively updated since the series last trip to CTMP, so new track records were sure to be set this weekend. At the end of the 20-minute qualifying session it was Jeansonne who came away with track record honors.
“Yesterday, a lot of people were fast,” Jeansonne said. “The top 10 especially were very close and there wasn't a whole lot that proved we were really setting ourselves apart as far as pace went. I wasn't quite sure what to expect (in qualifying), but I knew with my JTR teammates, if we hooked up and got some clean, good laps together, that we'd be somewhere in the mix and that's exactly what we did.”
The 10 bonus points that come with pole position are of great significance to Jeansonne who is currently third in the championship points.
This is the first trip to CTMP for all but one driver in the MX-5 Cup field (Alex Bachoura, No. 33 Spark Performance), so teams are having to guess how the race will pan out at the superfast 2.459-mile road course.
“Qualifying is important, but this track is raceable even if you were to be a little bit further back. “I think the bigger thing that I'm feeling here is that packs can separate a lot because of the consecutive corner sequences here. So if cars battle for seventh, eighth, ninth place, they can easily get separated from the lead pack and that's where I think you're at risk here and you really want to be up front.”
Zilisch, Jared Thomas (No. 96 JTR Motorsports Engineering), Nate Cicero (No. 83 McCumbee McAleer Racing) and Nathan Nicholson (No. 56 JTR Motorsports Engineering) complete the top five in qualifying.
Current championship point leader Gresham Wagner (No. 5 McCumbee McAleer Racing) qualified seventh.
Saturday’s Round Nine race will start at 5pm ET with live streaming available on RACER.com and IMSA.tv.