Tom Blomqvist gave Acura one of the strongest possible starts to a pivotal late-season weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, putting the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 on pole with a 1:14.674 lap. The performance came on a weather-disrupted Saturday and put Blomqvist and co-driver Colin Braun at the head of the field for the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks.
The timing adds considerably to the moment. Indianapolis is the penultimate round of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, while Acura is preparing to pause its GTP program after the season. With only Indianapolis and the season-ending Petit Le Mans remaining, every strong result now carries the feeling of a closing chapter. For the No. 60 crew, which entered Indianapolis still searching for its first victory of 2026, pole position provides one more opportunity to turn speed into a win.
A 1:14.674 Lap Put Acura Clearly on Top
Blomqvist’s decisive lap covered the 2.439-mile, 14-turn Indianapolis road course in 1 minute, 14.674 seconds. IMSA calculated his average speed at 117.582 mph. Championship leader Jack Aitken was the closest challenger in the No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.R, recording a 1:14.975. That left 0.301 seconds between first and second — a noticeable margin in a GTP qualifying session where several manufacturers were packed into roughly a second.
Blomqvist and Aitken were also the only drivers to break the 1-minute, 15-second barrier. Dries Vanthoor put the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 third with a 1:15.073, while Louis Deletraz qualified the No. 40 Cadillac fourth at 1:15.216. Nick Yelloly matched that 1:15.216 in the sister No. 93 Acura but set the time later, leaving him fifth. The result gave Acura one car at the very front and another inside the first three rows for the start.
Weather Turned Qualifying Into a Test of Timing
The stopwatch told only part of Saturday’s story. Lightning near Indianapolis Motor Speedway disrupted the qualifying program, while an earlier shower left sections of the racing surface less predictable than they had been during practice. GTP and LMP2 eventually received their 15-minute qualifying sessions, but there was not enough time to conduct the planned GTD PRO and GTD sessions. Those two grids were instead established using team championship positions.
That uncertainty made Blomqvist’s final attack especially significant. IMSA reported that the pole lap came with less than three minutes remaining while drivers were still navigating damp patches. Blomqvist also explained that Indianapolis can make it particularly difficult to generate temperature in the right-side tires. He felt the Acura effectively offered one optimal opportunity when the tires were ready. The lap came together at exactly that moment, turning a complicated afternoon into Acura’s strongest possible starting position.
The Pole Added Another Milestone for Meyer Shank Racing
For Blomqvist, Indianapolis produced his seventh career pole in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. For Meyer Shank Racing, it was the organization’s 25th WeatherTech Championship pole. The weekend also carries another unusually neat milestone: the team’s two Acura entries are scheduled to represent its 399th and 400th IMSA starts when the race begins.
Those numbers reflect a much longer journey than one successful qualifying session. The No. 60 pairing of Blomqvist and Braun has already shown front-row speed repeatedly during 2026, with Meyer Shank Racing saying the pair had started from the front row three times before finally claiming their first pole of the season at Indianapolis. Their previous pole had come at the 2025 Motul Petit Le Mans. For a team approaching both a major participation milestone and the end of Acura’s current GTP campaign, Indianapolis offered the kind of qualifying celebration that mechanics and engineers can appreciate even before the larger job of race day begins.
The Championship Leader Will Start Directly Beside the Acura
Acura may own pole, but the car beside Blomqvist carries the biggest championship implications. Jack Aitken arrived at Indianapolis leading the GTP drivers’ standings and qualified the No. 31 Cadillac second. Aitken also has recent history on his side at the circuit: he, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti won the 2025 Indianapolis race when it was contested as a six-hour endurance round.
Laurin Heinrich entered the weekend as Aitken’s closest championship challenger, but his Indianapolis starting position is less favourable. Kevin Estre qualified their No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 eighth, putting several cars between that entry and the championship-leading Cadillac. Acura has another interested participant near the front as well. Yelloly qualified the No. 93 ARX-06 fifth for himself and Renger van der Zande. That pairing arrived at Indianapolis third in the GTP driver standings after already delivering Acura a victory at Long Beach earlier in the season, ensuring both Acura entries have something meaningful to chase.
The No. 60 Has Had More Speed Than Its Results Suggest
Pole position changes the tone of a difficult championship campaign for Blomqvist and Braun. IMSA reported after qualifying that the pair remained winless in 2026, sat 10th in the GTP driver standings and were already eliminated from championship contention. Yet outright pace has not been absent. At Road America, for example, Blomqvist qualified second behind teammate Yelloly as the two ARX-06 entries locked out the front row.
Indianapolis therefore provides a chance to convert qualifying strength into the result that has eluded the No. 60. It is the team’s first pole of 2026 and arrives in the final sprint event of the season, where starting at the front removes at least one early obstacle. Blomqvist has emphasized that victory is the target rather than simply celebrating Saturday’s speed. For Braun and the crew waiting on the pit wall, the opportunity is straightforward: their car has earned the best starting position available, and only two races remain to give the No. 60 its first win of the year.
Last Year’s Indianapolis Disappointment Adds a Redemption Story
Blomqvist has actually been the fastest qualifier at Indianapolis two years in succession, but the record books tell a more complicated story. In September 2025, he initially topped GTP qualifying with a 1:14.569 lap in the No. 60 Acura, narrowly beating Aitken’s Cadillac. Post-qualifying technical inspection then found the Acura outside permitted LMDh bodywork tolerances. The lap was effectively lost as a pole-winning result, and the No. 60 was relegated to the rear of the GTP starting field while Aitken inherited pole.
The setback did not destroy Acura’s race. Blomqvist and Braun fought forward from the back and eventually finished third in the six-hour event. That history makes the 2026 performance more than a simple repeat of raw speed. The 1:14.674 was slightly slower than Blomqvist’s 2025 qualifying time, although differing track and weather conditions make direct comparisons limited. More importantly, this year’s result survived as the official pole. After what happened 12 months earlier, that distinction matters to the crew.
Acura’s IMSA Program Is Approaching Its Final Races
The Indianapolis pole also arrives with Acura’s larger racing future hanging over the weekend. Acura announced earlier in 2026 that it would pause its IMSA GTP program after the season. Honda Racing Corporation USA has described the move as the conclusion of a decade-long current stint that included competition with the NSX GT3, ARX-05 and ARX-06.
Ahead of Indianapolis qualifying, HRC US credited that era with 33 race victories, 43 pole positions and 14 combined team, driver and manufacturer championships. It also highlighted top-class victories in all four of North America’s major sports-car endurance events, including three Rolex 24 at Daytona wins. Blomqvist’s Indianapolis performance now adds another pole to the record accumulated before Saturday. The sister No. 93 Acura is carrying a special “Thank You” livery at Indianapolis and will use it again at Petit Le Mans, recognizing drivers, teams, circuits and accomplishments from Acura’s IMSA run. The design makes the farewell visible; the No. 60’s pole made it competitive.
The ARX-06 Remains a Serious GTP Contender at the End
The car beneath Blomqvist is not simply being allowed to age quietly into retirement. Honda Racing says the two electrified ARX-06 prototypes received aerodynamic updates for 2026 at both the front and rear. The sidepods and engine cover were also altered to accommodate revised exhaust regulations. Acura has continued developing a package that has competed against Cadillac, Porsche, BMW and Aston Martin machinery at the highest level of IMSA.
The ARX-06’s résumé was already substantial before this final campaign. It debuted alongside IMSA’s new GTP category in 2023 and immediately won the Rolex 24 at Daytona. A victory at Petit Le Mans followed later that season, while Acura added the Twelve Hours of Sebring in 2024. Honda Racing notes that those results made the ARX-06 the first car of the modern GTP era to win all three of those major IMSA endurance races. The Indianapolis pole demonstrates that, even as Acura prepares to pause the program, the prototype remains capable of setting the benchmark over a qualifying lap.
Indianapolis Is the Last Sprint Before the Season Finale
Sunday’s Battle on the Bricks is scheduled as a two-hour, 40-minute race and the final sprint event of IMSA’s 2026 season. The Indianapolis event had operated as a six-hour endurance race in 2024 and 2025, making the return to the shorter format a meaningful strategic change. IMSA has 44 cars scheduled across GTP, LMP2, GTD PRO and GTD, with the green flag set for 3:10 p.m. ET on September 20.
For Acura, that leaves very little road remaining. After Indianapolis, the WeatherTech Championship moves to Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta for the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans. Blomqvist and Braun cannot use the Indianapolis pole to revive their championship hopes, but they can still pursue something tangible: a race victory before the current Acura GTP program ends. Starting first does not guarantee that outcome, especially with championship leader Aitken alongside and a full multiclass field behind. It does, however, give Acura a fitting opportunity to leave Indianapolis with more than another fast lap to remember.
