Rocco Pasquarella and Tim Lewis turned a disqualified qualifying result into one of the better recovery drives of the 2026 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge season. Their #5 KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering Honda Civic Type R TCR started from the rear of the field at VIRginia International Raceway on August 26 and crossed the line third, giving Honda its seventh podium finish in eight rounds of competition.
The weekend’s complications started before the green flag. KMW provisionally qualified third, with LP Montour’s #93 MMG Honda slotting second. A qualifying incident involving the TMR entry cost the team their two fastest laps, sending Pasquarella to the back of the grid for the Virginia is for Racing Lovers Grand Prix. The MMG car made it to race day with its starting position intact, but Montour was assessed a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility early in the two-hour event, pulling the #93 out of contention at the front and into recovery mode alongside its sister entry.
From the rear, Pasquarella went to work. He described managing tire temperatures on a track that kept gaining heat through his stint, the kind of detail that separates methodical drives from desperate ones. Fuel conservation factored in too. “Fuel saving was also the name of the game,” he said after the race, “which is exactly what I did before handing it over to Tim.” By the time the car transferred to Lewis, KMW sat fourth.
Lewis closed the gap on third place and completed the pass with 15 minutes left on the clock. A late-race caution immediately froze the field, which is both a relief and a frustration in this situation: the position was secured, but a shot at running down the leaders in the closing minutes disappeared with it. When the green flag returned, MMG’s Montour made the same pass to move from fifth to fourth. A second caution then ended the race before either car could build on the restart.
KMW took the checkered flag in third. MMG crossed in fourth. The #72 Pegram Racing Honda of Riley and Larry Pegram finished seventh after getting caught in the final restart scramble, a result that did not reflect where the car had been running in the closing stages.
Lewis was generous in his assessment of what made the drive work. “You put him in the car, he’s calm, and he just ticks off cars one by one by one,” he said of Pasquarella. “He always puts us in a position at the end of the race to do well. That made my job a lot easier.” Pasquarella, for his part, noted this has become a pattern: “It seems like coming from the back is my specialty now.”
Seven podiums from eight rounds is a consistent run by any measure in a series that routinely generates multicar contact in its GS-class field. VIR was caution-heavy, which made track position especially valuable and made KMW’s ability to work through traffic without incident all the more significant.
Honda’s next IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge start is scheduled for September 19 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 120, Round 9 of the championship.
Source: Honda. Images courtesy of Honda.
