IMSA MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 2, 2026

Tom Blomqvist

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by our overall and GTP pole winner Motul pole award winner here at Motul Petit Le Mans, Tom Blomqvist in the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing, Acura ARX 06. Tom's best lap was 1:09.703 seconds. This is his eighth career pole in the WeatherTech Championship competition, his second consecutive.

This is his third pole at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta and the 15th pole for the Acura ARX 06.

Tom, obviously the goal is to go out there and have a great weekend with this team. Certainly got off to a good start. Just tell us about it.

TOM BLOMQVIST: Yeah, everyone knows, obviously, it's kind of a last hurrah, I guess. Just doing things like that we did today is obviously fantastic for everyone, for the team. Huge team effort, as always.

We know our car is generally very good over a lap. I generally enjoy this place, especially in qualifying. It's always about good to me. So, yeah, I think today was about executing more than anything. The expectation was to fight for pole, so obviously the team did a fantastic job with the one-two there. Yeah, we know today is one thing and tomorrow is a very different one.

Q. Tom, any way you can kind of crystallize the emotions? It's got to be strange in a lot of ways with the last race for Acura and just being out of championship contention and everything.

TOM BLOMQVIST: Yeah, obviously our championship has been not the best, to say the least. But yeah, obviously it's the last event, so everyone is -- just things like today go a long way for everyone, for the mood, putting smiles on people's faces so late in the program.

It's fantastic. The last two events, obviously qualifying has been very good. It's just nice to get out of the car and see everyone so happy. It hasn't been the smoothest of weekends. We had something go wrong yesterday and the guys worked super hard late into the night to make sure everything was good for today.

To get a little win today like we did just there with the pole is super important for everyone. Yeah, really excited for that.

Q. Tom, with the two Acuras, you are the only ones in the 109s doing this qualifying session. What is clicking well with the car at this racetrack for you?

TOM BLOMQVIST: Our car is generally good in high-speed, medium-speed corners, and it always excels pretty well in qualifying as well. We work the tires well, which gets a good peak, a good amount of grip out of them in a short period of time.

Obviously not necessarily bodes well for a longer stint, which is obviously what we try to work on. This weekend, we're focused a little bit more on that, I would say, because we know obviously it's a weakness. We knew we'd be good in qually. We didn't focus on it that much, if I'm honest.

Yeah, we've done our homework. We still know it's going to be super tough. Some of the competition looks extremely quick in the race pace, which we expected. We'll see tomorrow, but then again, if you look at the radar, it looks a bit dodgy, so it might spice things up anyway.

Q. On the race pace, where are you lacking? What are you missing for tomorrow that you're going to need over the course of a stint?

TOM BLOMQVIST: Yeah, I mean, these cars are notoriously quite hard on the tires, the rear tires, let's say. Yeah, that's generally what it is. Just got to make sure you look after those rear tires to make sure you've got grip for the 40-odd laps we need to do in a stint.

That's the biggest thing. But it's easier said than done, if you know what I mean. Obviously we've been fighting that, trying to work on that.

It depends on the track as well. This is a track that's hard on tires, so it's very dependent on that as well.

But yeah, we've done the best we can with the time we've had, and yeah, let's see if it's enough?

Q. How much of this race is just making it to the night, and how do you feel about the car in the night versus the day?

TOM BLOMQVIST: Yeah, that's the good thing about this race. Obviously the car gets better in the night. It gets a little bit easier for most people, depending on where you are in the window with the tire. We expect it to get better in the night, let's say, which is a good thing.

But as you've seen the last few races, you need to kind of be at the front the whole time. It's very difficult now. Everyone is super close, super competitive, very on it with the strategy.

So it's hard to get shuffled back and do a whole lot. If you're too far back in the last couple hours, unless you get lucky with something.

But you've got to keep yourself in the game just to make your life easier there. Look, we'll see. We've done all we can, and we've just got to have a clean race.

Q. John Hindhaugh made a point on the radio broadcast that you guys did that entire qually run on one set of tires when most of the other groups were doing two. What was it about the Acuras that managed to only need the one set, and the better progression over the course of that little mini-run that you guys were able to do in qually?

TOM BLOMQVIST: Yeah, the others, they just go out and back into the pits. They don't really use the tires. They might just want to warm up the brakes or do half a set or whatever. It's more just like qually prep.

We wait a little bit just to get out of sync because it's always a pain when you have guys coming out in front of you slowly. We just kind of wanted to avoid that. We knew we weren't going to get too many laps out of these tires. If you hit the peak they don't last too long to get the most performance.

Actually I was surprised with my last lap there the grip was getting better and better. I think honestly pushed a little bit too early when the tires were a little bit too cold. Thankfully had that last lap there which was really good.

But yeah, nothing special. The others didn't really use two sets.