IMSA Road America: Acura leads Nissan in opening practice

The championship leader (along with co-driver Juan Pablo Montoya) lapped the 4.048-mile track in 1min50.007sec to go 0.023sec than Colin Braun’s best effort in the Nissan DPi run by the CORE autosport team, and precisely 0.1sec clear of teammate Ricky Taylor in the #7 Acura.

The closest rivals to Cameron/Montoya on the points table are Felipe Nasr and Pipo Derani of Action Express Racing and they were fourth fastest this morning, but the Cadillac DPi-V.Rs have been left gasping by the pace of their Prototype rivals, Nasr lapping some 1.2sec off the pace.

Tristan Vautier in the JDC Miller Motorsports Caddy was fifth, a further few hundreths behind.

Harry Tincknell was fastest Mazda driver, but his #55 RT24-P was over 1.5sec in arrears, marginally faster than Joao Barbosa in the second AXR Cadillac, who was in turn 0.15sec ahead of Oliver Jarvis in the second Mazda.

James French outpaced Matt McMurry by a surprising 1.2sec in the all-Oreca LMP2 battle.

In GT Le Mans, Nick Tandy’s #911 Porsche 911 RSR was fastest by 0.4sec ahead of the #4 Corvette C7.R of Oliver Gavin, who has been rejoined by Tommy Milner this weekend after the American had to sit out the last two races with a hand injury.

Tom Blomqvist was an encouraging third fastest in the BMW M8 ahead of the second Corvette of Antonio Garcia and the second Porsche of Laurens Vanthoor.

GT Daytona saw Jeroen Bleekemolen’s Riley Mercedes-AMG GT3 finish the session P1 but just half a tenth faster than Bryan Sellers in the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan, which in turn was 0.3sec up on Pat Long’s best in the Park Place Motorsport Porscher 911 GT3 R.

Second practice commences at 4.25pm local (Central) time.

Session results:

Cla	Num	Driver	Class	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	6	Dane Cameron Juan Pablo Montoya	DPi	Acura DPi	1'50.007
2	54	Jon Bennett Colin Braun	DPi	Nissan DPi	1'50.030	0.023
3	7	Ricky Taylor Helio Castroneves	DPi	Acura DPi	1'50.107	0.100
4	31	Felipe Nasr Pipo Derani	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'51.241	1.234
5	85	Mikhail Goikhberg Tristan Vautier	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'51.276	1.269
6	55	Jonathan Bomarito Harry Tincknell	DPi	Mazda DPi	1'51.578	1.571
7	5	Joao Barbosa Filipe Albuquerque	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'51.586	1.579
8	77	Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez	DPi	Mazda DPi	1'51.737	1.730
9	84	Simon Trummer Stephen Simpson	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'52.123	2.116
10	10	Renger van der Zande Jordan Taylor	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'52.916	2.909
11	38	Cameron Cassels James French	LMP2	ORECA LMP2	1'53.808	3.801
12	52	Matt McMurry Patrick Kelly	LMP2	ORECA LMP2	1'55.012	5.005
13	911	Patrick Pilet Nick Tandy	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	2'02.147	12.140
14	4	Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	2'02.544	12.537
15	25	Tom Blomqvist Connor de Phillippi	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	2'02.585	12.578
16	3	Jan Magnussen Antonio Garcia	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	2'02.611	12.604
17	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	2'03.074	13.067
18	24	Jesse Krohn John Edwards	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	2'03.255	13.248
19	66	Joey Hand Dirk Muller	GTLM	Ford GT	2'03.281	13.274
20	67	Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook	GTLM	Ford GT	2'03.344	13.337
21	33	Ben Keating Jeroen Bleekemolen	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2'06.060	16.053
22	48	Bryan Sellers Corey Lewis	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2'06.102	16.095
23	73	Patrick Lindsey Patrick Long	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	2'06.415	16.408
24	14	Richard Heistand Jack Hawksworth	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	2'06.465	16.458
25	91	Anthony Imperato Dennis Olsen	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	2'06.545	16.538
26	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	2'06.569	16.562
27	44	John Potter Andy Lally	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2'06.692	16.685
28	74	Gar Robinson Lawson Aschenbach	GTD	Mercedes-AMG	2'06.922	16.915
29	9	Matt Campbell Zacharie Robichon	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	2'06.958	16.951
30	86	Mario Farnbacher Trent Hindman	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	2'07.078	17.071
31	76	Paul Holton Matt Plumb	GTD	McLaren 720S GT3	2'07.965	17.958
32	63	Cooper MacNeil Toni Vilander	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	2'07.972	17.965
33	12	Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	2'08.085	18.078
34	8	Parker Chase Ryan Dalziel	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	2'08.241	18.234
35	57	Katherine Legge Ana Beatriz	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	2'09.344	19.337
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