Long Beach IMSA: Nasr leads AXR 1-2 in first practice
Action Express Racing's Felipe Nasr set the pace in first practice for this weekend's IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round at Long Beach, narrowly beating teammate Filipe Albuquerque.
#31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi, P: Eric Curran, Felipe Nasr
Richard Dole / Motorsport Images
Ex-Sauber Formula 1 star Nasr set the quickest time in the final five minutes of the two-hour session in the #31 Cadillac DPi-V.R he shares with Eric Curran, dislodging Team Penske's Helio Castroneves from the top of the timesheets with a 1m13.720s.
The Brazilian subsequently improved to a 1m13.582s, moments before Albuquerque slotted into second in the #5 Cadillac with a time just 0.093s slower.
Castroneves led much of the latter half of the session in the #7 Acura ARX-05 DPi after surging to the head of the field with a little over 40 minutes remaining, but teammate Ricky Taylor was unable to improve when he took over the car for the final part of the session and was demoted to third.
Just 0.008s behind in fourth place was the best of the Joest-run Mazda RT24-Ps of Oliver Jarvis, while Jordan Taylor made it three Cadillacs in the top five in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing-run machine ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya in the #6 Penske-Acura.
Sebring 12 Hour-winning squad Extreme Speed Motorsports could do no better than eighth and ninth with its pair of Onroak-Nissan DPis, behind the second of the Mazdas.
With DPi cars locking out the top nine positions, best of the LMP2 runners was the #99 JDC-Miller Motorsports Oreca-Gibson whose best time was set by Stephen Simpson.
Ford leads GTLM
The Chip Ganassi Racing-run Ford GTs locked out the top two spots in the GT Le Mans division, with both Ryan Briscoe and Dirk Muller breaching the 1m18s barrier in the final stages.
Briscoe's best time in the #67 car was a 1m17.898s, enough to beat Dirk Muller's #66 car by 0.095s.
Porsche held the advantage for much of the session, but Earl Bamber's best effort of 1m18.012s in the #912 car proved only good enough for third in the final reckoning.
Nick Tandy caused one of two red flags in the #911 Porsche when he hit the barriers at Turn 8 with just over an hour to go, but the car ended up fourth-fastest in the hands of Patrick Pilet.
The two Corvette C7.Rs were fifth and sixth-fastest ahead of BMW's pair of RLL-run M8s, which brought up the 22-car field in the absence of the GT Daytona class.
Colin Braun caused the second stoppage mere minutes after the first when he tapped the wall at Turn 8 in the CORE autosport Oreca-Gibson LMP2.
Practice results:
Pos. | # | Drivers | Class | Chassis | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 31 | Eric Curran Felipe Nasr |
P | Cadillac DPi | 1'13.582 | |
2 | 5 | Filipe Albuquerque Joao Barbosa |
P | Cadillac DPi | 1'13.675 | 0.093 |
3 | 7 | Helio Castroneves Ricky Taylor |
P | Acura DPi | 1'13.735 | 0.153 |
4 | 77 | Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez |
P | Mazda DPi | 1'13.743 | 0.161 |
5 | 10 | Jordan Taylor Renger van der Zande |
P | Cadillac DPi | 1'13.968 | 0.386 |
6 | 6 | Juan Pablo Montoya Dane Cameron |
P | Acura DPi | 1'14.190 | 0.608 |
7 | 55 | Harry Tincknell Jonathan Bomarito |
P | Mazda DPi | 1'14.319 | 0.737 |
8 | 22 | Pipo Derani Johannes van Overbeek |
P | Nissan DPi | 1'14.577 | 0.995 |
9 | 2 | Scott Sharp Ryan Dalziel |
P | Nissan DPi | 1'14.653 | 1.071 |
10 | 99 | Mikhail Goikhberg Stephen Simpson |
P | ORECA LMP2 | 1'14.716 | 1.134 |
11 | 38 | James French Kyle Masson |
P | ORECA LMP2 | 1'15.091 | 1.509 |
12 | 85 | Simon Trummer Robert Alon |
P | ORECA LMP2 | 1'15.148 | 1.566 |
13 | 54 | Jon Bennett Colin Braun |
P | ORECA LMP2 | 1'15.417 | 1.835 |
14 | 52 | Gustavo Yacaman Sebastian Saavedra |
P | Ligier LMP2 | 1'15.747 | 2.165 |
15 | 67 | Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook |
GTLM | Ford GT | 1'17.898 | 4.316 |
16 | 66 | Joey Hand Dirk Müller |
GTLM | Ford GT | 1'17.993 | 4.411 |
17 | 912 | Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor |
GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR | 1'18.012 | 4.430 |
18 | 911 | Nick Tandy Patrick Pilet |
GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR | 1'18.046 | 4.464 |
19 | 4 | Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner |
GTLM | Corvette C7.R | 1'18.844 | 5.262 |
20 | 3 | Jan Magnussen Antonio Garcia |
GTLM | Corvette C7.R | 1'19.009 | 5.427 |
21 | 25 | Connor de Phillippi Alexander Sims |
GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 1'19.619 | 6.037 |
22 | 24 | John Edwards Jesse Krohn |
GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 1'19.958 | 6.376 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments