Laguna Seca: Friday morning practice notes

FERNANDEZ FASTEST AGAIN IN MONTEREY PRACTICE

Adrian Fernandez picked up where he left off Thursday night with the fastest time in Friday morning's practice for the Monterey Sports Car Championships at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The Lowe's Fernandez Racing Acura-powered Lola set a time of 1:11.950 a day after posting the fastest lap in Thursday's two-hour test session.

Fernandez said Thursday night that the Acura-Lola, which he will share with Luis Diaz, is a better car on smoother tracks and in cooler temperatures. The field got that again Friday morning. Fernandez was 0.029 seconds better than the first of Penske Racing's two Porsche RS Spyders, the No. 6 of Sascha Maassen and Ryan Briscoe. The sister car of Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard was 0.185 seconds back of the lead Penske car.

Acura held the fourth spot as well with Andretti Green Racing's Acura ARX of Bryan Herta and Tony Kanaan at 1:12.300. LMP2 cars took the first four positions.

The best of the P1 cars was Dindo Capello's Audi R10 TDI in fifth place overall at 1:12.637. He and Allan McNish won last year's four-hour race in the diesel-powered prototype's debut at the circuit. Capello was 1.102 seconds better than the sister car of Mike Rockenfeller and Marco Werner.

In GT1, Oliver Gavin posted the fastest time in Corvette Racing's Corvette C6.R. The English driver's lap of 1:20.485 in the entry he'll share with Olivier Beretta was 0.6 seconds better than the No. 3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Johnny O'Connell. Both cars had their problems as Magnussen went off at Turn 3 after contact with the Fernandez Acura while the No. 4 developed a fuel leak toward the end of the session.

Jorg Bergmeister set the fastest time in GT2 for Flying Lizard Motorsports. Bergmeister's time of 1:24.301 in the No. 45 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR put him 0.046 seconds ahead of the Tafel Racing's No. 71 Porsche of Wolf Henzler and Dominik Farnbacher. Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing was the best of the Ferrari entrants with a 1:24.533 by the No. 31 car of Peter Dumbreck and Lucas Luhr.

-credit: alms