Every point matters in the battle for the Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires Championship. Aaron Jeansonne secured 10 bonus points at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta by earning pole position. That puts Jeansonne 10 points closer to his teammate Jared Thomas (No. 96 JTR Motorsports Engineering) who qualified third.
Two red flags to retrieve stranded cars limited the amount of laps drivers were able to run in the 15-minute qualifying session. Jeansonne’s fifth lap ended up being the fastest of the session, a 1m36.635w. It was 0.026w faster than Selin Rollan (No. 87 Hixon Motor Sports) who will start second.
“Jared [Thomas] and I, both of our cars were really hooked up, just like they were in practice,” Jeansonne said. “We worked with Tyler Gonzalez (No. 35 Saito Motorsports Group) as well. We had a bit of a train going. It was a little messy with all the red flags and a bit of debris. I think we had the right train and had enough air to put a couple good laps together. We were in the right place at the right time.”
With pole position comes 10 bonus points and that trims Thomas’ lead in the points over teammate Jeansonne from 290 to 280.
“The 10 bonus points; I can use every bit of that,” Jeasonne said. “Jared [Thomas] has a good lead so the weekend is in his hands. I’m really proud that we’re one-two going into this thing and I wish him well and hope we have a couple of great races.”
The penultimate round of the 2023 Mazda MX-5 Cup is set to go green at 5:45pm ET Thursday. The race will be streamed live on RACER.com.