LONG BEACH, Ca — Patron Tequila is the event title sponsor. Patron also sponsors the David Brabham – Scott Sharp driven LMP2 Acura ARX-02A fast qualifier at the Long Beach American LeMans Series (ALMS) race that is slated to kick off in just under three hours. So you might think that instead of the traditional champagne spray at the end of the race that race officials might be serving Tequila.

The Brabham-Sharp team set a new qualifying standard Friday with a 1:11.627 lap and were just a tick of the clock ahead of their sister team, the Gil de Ferran Simon Pagenaud drive Acura ARS-02a car making for a good race between the two front-running LMP1 cars.

In LMP2 is was the Lowes Fernandez  ARX-01b car that set the fast time for the LMP2 class with fast time of 1:13.134 to sit on the pole position for this class. But even with two straight convincing wins by Fernandez and co-driver Luis Diaz, many are wondering if this might be the week that the Mazda’s show their teeth to the LMP2 field.

The PB Dyson Lola Mazda car driven by Chris Dyson and Guy Smith, after slowly creeping up the speed ladder, posted a qualifying lap late in the period that was just a quarter of a seconde slower than the Acura and their sister car, driven by Butch Leitzinger and Marino Frachitti was less than one mph behind the class leader.

It is clear that the Mazda has the speed to stay with the Acura — it turned the fastest lap of the race two weeks ago at St. Petersburg. However, in this shorter and somewhat tighter event there is likely to be more pushing and shoving on the track and anything can happen. The Fernandez and Diaz team have not been lucky at Long Beach in the past — but they are driving with supreme confidence after back-to-back wins.

In GT1 it there are just two events to battle it out for the win while the GT2 cars will dominate the field. It was the Risi Competiizione Ferrari F430 GT with Jaime Melo and Mika Salo that set top time in qualifying, about a quarter of a second ahead of the  Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche 911 RSR driven by Wolf Henzler and Dirk Werner.

Tequila or champagne it looks like the Long Beach ALMS race will have plenty of fiz.