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Practice report

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.

#7 Acura Team Penske Acura DPi, DPi: Helio Castroneves, Ricky Taylor

#7 Acura Team Penske Acura DPi, DPi: Helio Castroneves, Ricky Taylor

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 Brazil Helio Castroneves
United States Ricky Taylor
DPi Acura DPi 1'50.654
2 6 United States Dane Cameron
Colombia Juan Pablo Montoya
DPi Acura DPi 1'50.929 0.275
3 10 Netherlands Renger van der Zande
Australia Ryan Briscoe
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'50.939 0.285
4 31 Brazil Felipe Nasr
Brazil Pipo Derani
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'50.972 0.318
5 55 United States Jonathan Bomarito
United Kingdom Harry Tincknell
DPi Mazda DPi 1'51.310 0.656
6 77 United Kingdom Oliver Jarvis
United States Tristan Nunez
DPi Mazda DPi 1'51.484 0.830
7 5 Portugal Joao Barbosa
France Sébastien Bourdais
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'51.638 0.984
8 85 United States Chris Miller
France Tristan Vautier
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'51.853 1.199
9 52 Switzerland Simon Trummer
United States Patrick Kelly
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'53.381 2.727
10 81 Sweden Henrik Hedman
United Kingdom Ben Hanley
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'53.515 2.861
11 18 United States Dwight Merriman
United States Kyle Tilley
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'54.329 3.675
12 38 Canada Cameron Cassels
United States James French
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'54.562 3.908
13 911 United Kingdom Nick Tandy
France Frédéric Makowiecki
GTLM Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2'01.492 10.838
14 912 New Zealand Earl Bamber
Belgium Laurens Vanthoor
GTLM Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2'01.583 10.929
15 24 Finland Jesse Krohn
United States John Edwards
GTLM BMW M8 GTE 2'02.548 11.894
16 4 United Kingdom Oliver Gavin
United States Tommy Milner
GTLM Corvette C8.R 2'02.709 12.055
17 3 Spain Antonio Garcia
United States Jordan Taylor
GTLM Corvette C8.R 2'03.112 12.458
18 25 Canada Bruno Spengler
United States Connor de Phillippi
GTLM BMW M8 GTE 2'05.769 15.115
19 96 United States Robby Foley
United States Bill Auberlen
GTD BMW M6 GT3 2'06.822 16.168
20 16 United States Ryan Hardwick
United States Patrick Long
GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R 2'07.642 16.988
21 74 United States Gar Robinson
United States Lawson Aschenbach
GTD Mercedes-AMG GT3 2'07.797 17.143
22 76 United States Corey Fergus
United States Paul Holton
GTD McLaren 720S GT3 2'07.830 17.176
23 12 United States Frankie Montecalvo
United States Townsend Bell
GTD Lexus RC F GT3 2'08.044 17.390
24 86 Germany Mario Farnbacher
United States Matt McMurry
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'08.437 17.783
25 22 United States Till Bechtolsheimer
United States Marc Miller
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'08.526 17.872
26 63 United States Cooper MacNeil
Finland Toni Vilander
GTD Ferrari 488 GT3 2'08.558 17.904
27 57 Portugal Alvaro Parente
Canada Mikhail Goikhberg
GTD Acura NSX GT3 2'08.579 17.925
28 44 United States Andy Lally
United States John Potter
GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3 2'08.800 18.146
29 23 Canada Roman De Angelis
United Kingdom Ian James
GTD Aston Martin Vantage GT3 2'09.659 19.005
30 30 United States Rob Ferriol
United States Spencer Pumpelly
GTD Audi R8 LMS GT3 2'09.690 19.036
31 14 United Kingdom Jack Hawksworth
United States Aaron Telitz
GTD Lexus RC F GT3

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