The top class of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship is a DPi versus LMP2 battle for 2017, and Fittipaldi’s Cadillac DPi lapped the Daytona road course in 1m38.196s, 0.796s ahead of the Wayne Taylor Racing version of Ricky Taylor. That car features NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon in its lineup this weekend.

Michael Conway was third quickest in the second Action Express car, with the leading LMP2 being the DragonSpeed Oreca of former GP2 star Ben Hanley, 2.16s off the fastest Cadillac’s pace.

Mathias Beche was fifth fastest in the JDC-Miller Motorsports Oreca, ahead of the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsport Ligier of Tom Kimber-Smith. Former WEC champion Brendon Hartley was seventh in the fastest of the ESM Nissans.

Ford’s Olivier Pla set the GTLM pace, just a few hundredths of a second ahead of Porsche newcomer Laurens Vanthoor in the all-new mid-engined 911 RSR. Vanthoor was two tenths clear of the second of four Ford GTs, driven by Joey Hand, and Tony Vilander was fourth fastest for Ferrari.

Alessandro Balzan set the GTD pace in his Ferrari 488, ahead of the Lamborghini of Christian Englehart.

The PC class was led by Gustavo Yacaman for BAR1 Motorsports.

There were no major problems during the session, although it did end under a red flag in the closing seconds.

Pos	Drivers	Class	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	Christian Fittipaldi    Filipe Albuquerque    Joao Barbosa	P	Cadillac DPi	1'38.196
2	Jeff Gordon    Jordan Taylor    Ricky Taylor    Max Angelelli	P	Cadillac DPi	1'38.992	0.796
3	Mike Conway    Dane Cameron    Eric Curran    Seb Morris	P	Cadillac DPi	1'40.019	1.823
4	Loic Duval    Nicolas Lapierre    Henrik Hedman    Ben Hanley	P	ORECA	1'40.356	2.160
5	Mathias Beche    Mikhail Goikhberg    Chris Miller    Stephen Simpson	P	ORECA	1'40.396	2.200
6	R.C. Enerson    Tom Kimber-Smith    Jose Gutierrez    Mike Guasch	P	Ligier	1'40.534	2.338
7	Bruno Senna    Brendon Hartley    Ed Brown    Johannes van Overbeek	P	Nissan DPi	1'40.883	2.687
8	Stéphane Sarrazin    Nick Heidfeld    Sébastien Buemi    Neel Jani	P	ORECA	1'41.002	2.806
9	René Rast    Marc Goossens    Renger van der Zande	P	Multimatic/Riley	1'41.476	3.280
10	Spencer Pigot    Jonathan Bomarito    Tristan Nunez	P	Mazda DPi	1'41.771	3.575
11	James Hinchcliffe    Tom Long    Joel Miller	P	Mazda DPi	1'42.130	3.934
12	Brendon Hartley    Pipo Derani    Scott Sharp    Ryan Dalziel	P	Nissan DPi	1'43.033	4.837
13	Gustavo Yacaman    Don Yount    Mark Kvamme    Chapman Ducote    Buddy Rice	PC	ORECA FLM09	1'43.668	5.472
14	David Cheng    Johnny Mowlem    Adam Merzon    Trent Hindman    Tom Papadopoulos	PC	ORECA FLM09	1'44.201	6.005
15	Stefan Mücke    Olivier Pla    Billy Johnson	GTLM	Ford GT	1'44.755	6.559
16	Richard Lietz    Kevin Estre    Laurens Vanthoor	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	1'44.784	6.588
17	Sébastien Bourdais    Joey Hand    Dirk Müller	GTLM	Ford GT	1'44.946	6.750
18	Giancarlo Fisichella    James Calado    Toni Vilander	GTLM	Ferrari 488 GTE	1'45.023	6.827
19	Harry Tincknell    Tony Kanaan    Andy Priaulx	GTLM	Ford GT	1'45.116	6.920
20	Patrick Pilet    Frédéric Makowiecki    Dirk Werner	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	1'45.127	6.931