Kevin Magnussen wins first IMSA pole position in Detroit

Kevin Magnussen scored his first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole position, qualifying first for the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic at the Belle Isle Raceway in Detroit.

Magnussen, who also was the fastest overall in two practice sessions, turned a 1-minute, 20.031-second lap in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac around the 14-turn, 2.3-mile street course, topping the No. 55 Mazda driven by Harry Tincknell (1:20.052) and the No. 31 Cadillac qualified by Pipo Derani (1:20.161).

“Getting pole position for the team today means a lot,” said Magnussen, the Formula One veteran who is teamed with Renger van der Zande. “We went to Daytona, Chip Ganassi Racing and Cadillac put this team together in a rush, and we were quick straight away and in a fight for the win to the end when we had a tire blow out.

QUALIFYING: Click here for DPi l Click here for GTD

PRACTICE: Click here for Session I l Session II l Combined

“We were leading at Sebring and had that incident at the end. Mid-Ohio we had the fastest lap of the race, so it feels like we have been strong but haven’t been able to capitalize on that pace. It is good to get pole and start at the front. It is GM’s home track with Cadillac, so we are happy to start from pole.”

Congratulations to the @motul pole award winners at @detroitgp!

DPi: No. 01 @Cadillac @CGRsportscar
GTLM: No. 4 @CorvetteRacing @TeamChevy
GTD: No. 39 @audisport @PeregrineRace #IMSA / #DetroitGP pic.twitter.com/khMl8GJMok

— IMSA (@IMSA) June 11, 2021

Rounding out the top six in DPi were Ricky Taylor (No. 10 Acura, 1:20.299); Tristan Vautier (No. 5 Cadillac, 1:20.532), who led the morning practice and Olivier Pla (No. 60 Acura, 1:21.455).

IMSA IN DETROIT: Full details for the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic

In GTD, Richard Hiestand qualified the No. 39 Peregrine Racing Audi R8 on the pole position with a lap of 1:30.597.

Frankie Montecalvo was second (1:30.617) in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. Roman De Angelis was third in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (1:30.671).

In GTLM (which is running as an exhibition class this weekend), the No. 4 Corvette C8.R of Nick Tandy beat the No. 3 of teammate Jordan Taylor by 0.323 seconds with a lap of 1:27.283.

Saturday race will begin at 5 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

*Kevin Magnussen in the No. 01 Cadillac of Chip Ganassi Racing (Cadillac/Richard Prince).*

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.