IMSA Road America: Acura Team Penske back on top in FP1
After a difficult couple of races since the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season restarted, Ricky Taylor and Dane Cameron put the Acura Team Penske ARX-05s at the top of the field in opening practice at Road America.
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
Cameron held top spot until the final four minutes when Taylor sprung from worst to first in class with a 1min50.654sec lap of the 4.048-mile course, to go fastest by 0.275sec.
Wayne Taylor Racing’s Renger van der Zande set a time just 0.010sec shy of Cameron to be fastest of the Cadillac DPi-V.Rs, albeit just 0.033sec ahead of the Sebring-winning machine of Action Express Racing, in which Felipe Nasr set fastest time.
Jonathan Bomarito was fifth in the faster of the two Mazda RT24-Ps, Joao Barbosa and Tristan Vautier completing the eight-car field in the two JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillacs.
In LMP2 Cameron Cassels had a wall-banging moment exiting Turn 5 that restricted the number of laps that Performance Tech Motorsports could turn and caused the second of two red flags.
Simon Trummer, on his return to PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports led the class with a best time just 1.5sec slower than slowest DPi time, with Henrik Hedman second fastest for DragonSpeed.
The Porsche 911 RSR-19s appeared dominant in GT Le Mans, Frederick Makowiecki and Laurens Vanthoor just one tenth apart and one second faster than their nearest rival, Jesse Krohn in the #24 Rahal Letterman Lanigan-run BMW M8.
Tommy Milner and Antonio Garcia, whose Corvettes earlier this month won the races at Sebring and Daytona respectively, were 1.2 and 1.6sec off the ultimate pace in class.
The second BMW of Connor De Phillippi caused the first red flag in the session when it ran long in Turn 5 and needed a bumpstart and reboot before heading to the pits and then the paddock.
The Turner Motorsports BMW M6 GT3 of Robby Foley and Bill Auberlen led GT Daytona by a very impressive 0.8sec, ahead of Pat Long in the Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
There should be noted, however, the proviso that the AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Aaron Telitz and Jack Hawksworth, recent winners at Daytona and Sebring, had a malfunctioning transponder and therefore didn’t officially record a lap time.
Their teammate Townsend Bell was fifth, behind Lawson Aschenbach in the Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Paul Holton’s McLaren 720S GT3 run by Compass Racing.
On Saturday, second practice will begin at 8.55am local (Central) time/9.55am Eastern, while qualifying commences at 1.50pm.
Practice results:
Cla | Num | Driver | Class | Chassis | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 7 |
Helio Castroneves
Ricky Taylor |
DPi | Acura DPi | 1'50.654 | |
2 | 6 |
Dane Cameron
Juan Pablo Montoya |
DPi | Acura DPi | 1'50.929 | 0.275 |
3 | 10 |
Renger van der Zande
Ryan Briscoe |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'50.939 | 0.285 |
4 | 31 |
Felipe Nasr
Pipo Derani |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'50.972 | 0.318 |
5 | 55 |
Jonathan Bomarito
Harry Tincknell |
DPi | Mazda DPi | 1'51.310 | 0.656 |
6 | 77 |
Oliver Jarvis
Tristan Nunez |
DPi | Mazda DPi | 1'51.484 | 0.830 |
7 | 5 |
Joao Barbosa
Sébastien Bourdais |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'51.638 | 0.984 |
8 | 85 |
Chris Miller
Tristan Vautier |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'51.853 | 1.199 |
9 | 52 |
Simon Trummer
Patrick Kelly |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'53.381 | 2.727 |
10 | 81 |
Henrik Hedman
Ben Hanley |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'53.515 | 2.861 |
11 | 18 |
Dwight Merriman
Kyle Tilley |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'54.329 | 3.675 |
12 | 38 |
Cameron Cassels
James French |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'54.562 | 3.908 |
13 | 911 |
Nick Tandy
Frédéric Makowiecki |
GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | 2'01.492 | 10.838 |
14 | 912 |
Earl Bamber
Laurens Vanthoor |
GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | 2'01.583 | 10.929 |
15 | 24 |
Jesse Krohn
John Edwards |
GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 2'02.548 | 11.894 |
16 | 4 |
Oliver Gavin
Tommy Milner |
GTLM | Corvette C8.R | 2'02.709 | 12.055 |
17 | 3 |
Antonio Garcia
Jordan Taylor |
GTLM | Corvette C8.R | 2'03.112 | 12.458 |
18 | 25 |
Bruno Spengler
Connor de Phillippi |
GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 2'05.769 | 15.115 |
19 | 96 |
Robby Foley
Bill Auberlen |
GTD | BMW M6 GT3 | 2'06.822 | 16.168 |
20 | 16 |
Ryan Hardwick
Patrick Long |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 2'07.642 | 16.988 |
21 | 74 |
Gar Robinson
Lawson Aschenbach |
GTD | Mercedes-AMG GT3 | 2'07.797 | 17.143 |
22 | 76 |
Corey Fergus
Paul Holton |
GTD | McLaren 720S GT3 | 2'07.830 | 17.176 |
23 | 12 |
Frankie Montecalvo
Townsend Bell |
GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 2'08.044 | 17.390 |
24 | 86 |
Mario Farnbacher
Matt McMurry |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 2'08.437 | 17.783 |
25 | 22 |
Till Bechtolsheimer
Marc Miller |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 2'08.526 | 17.872 |
26 | 63 |
Cooper MacNeil
Toni Vilander |
GTD | Ferrari 488 GT3 | 2'08.558 | 17.904 |
27 | 57 |
Alvaro Parente
Mikhail Goikhberg |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 2'08.579 | 17.925 |
28 | 44 |
Andy Lally
John Potter |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 2'08.800 | 18.146 |
29 | 23 |
Roman De Angelis
Ian James |
GTD | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 | 2'09.659 | 19.005 |
30 | 30 |
Rob Ferriol
Spencer Pumpelly |
GTD | Audi R8 LMS GT3 | 2'09.690 | 19.036 |
31 | 14 |
Jack Hawksworth
Aaron Telitz |
GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | ||
View full results |
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