Road America IMSA: Taylor tops first practice in WTR Acura

Cadillac DPi-V.Rs dominated the early running in first practice for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s penultimate round of the 2022 season for the Prototype class.

Earl Bamber in the #02 Chip Ganassi Racing entry was the first driver into the 1min50s, clocking a 1min50.835sec ahead of Pipo Derani in the Action Express Racing car, and then Sebastien Bourdais in the #01 Ganassi machine.

With 50 of the 90min session remaining, Tom Blomqvist interrupted this Cadillac 1-2-3 by slotting the Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05 into third, 0.22sec off top time before pitting.

An alarming off for High Class Racing’s Dennis Andersen saw the LMP2 Oreca flying off the track at Turn 11, requiring at least a new nose. That off brought out a red flag, but the flying of the green with 27mins remaining saw all DPi cars heading back out.

Seven minutes later, Ricky Taylor was into his stride – and found a relatively clear lap – to send the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura into second, 0.177sec behind Bamber’s benchmark and then moved convincingly to the top with a 1min50.539sec – almost three-tenths quicker than the nearest opposition.

His time wouldn’t be eclipsed, so Bamber/Alex Lynn and Derani/Olivier Pla stayed second and third, ahead of the Meyer Shank Acura, the #01 Cadillac of Bourdais/Renger van der Zande. Tristan Vautier set the JDC Miller MotorSports Cadillac’s fastest time but was almost 1.5sec slower than Taylor.

In GTD Pro, the #14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F held fastest time with Ben Barnicoat at the wheel, a 2min06.971sec, but in teammate Jack Hawksworth’s hands the car ground to a halt on track at Turn 12 and needed rescuing with 40mins remaining.

Closest at that stage was Matt Campbell in the Pfaff Porsche 911 GT3 R, 0.15sec behind, just ahead of the leader in GTD’s pro-am class, local hero Aaron Telitz in the second Lexus that he shares with Frankie Montecalvo.

With 17mins to go, Robby Foley then outpaced all the GTD Pro and GTD runners in Turner Motorsports’ BMW M4 with a 2min06.920sec, with fastest times in Sector 2 – which is 73sec long at GTD pace – and Sector 3.

Montecalvo wasn’t going to take that laying down, and sure enough he took top spot by over quarter of a second from Foley.

But he stayed at the top for barely a minute before Jaden Conwright’s NTE/SSR Lamborghini Huracan moved to P1, and then the similar Lambo of Carbahn Peregrine Racing driven by Robert Megennis shaded Conwright by a mere 0.071sec.

Connor De Phillippi in the works BMW M4 eventually shaded Foley’s best effort by 0.28sec to go fastest of the GTD Pro runners, while Antonio Garcia in the Corvette C8.R moved into third in class, behind Barnicoat’s earlier top time, and ahead of the Pfaff Porsche.

In LMP2, Ryan Dalziel was fastest for Era Motorsport ahead of Tristan Nunez, who has returned to PR1 Mathiasen Motorsport to replace Jonathan Bomarito in the #11 car.

Juan Pablo Montoya was third fastest for DragonSpeed ahead of Louis Deletraz in the Tower Motorsports car and the second PR1 Mathiasen entry of Josh Pierson.

Malthe Jakobsen’s Sean Creech Motorsport car topped LMP3 despite a couple of incidents, three tenths quicker than Riley Motorsports’ Felipe Fraga and Scott Andrews in the JDC Miller Motorsports machine.

Second practice begins at 3.15pm local (Central) time.

Full practice times to follow…

Cla	Driver	Class	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Ricky Taylor Filipe Albuquerque	DPi	Acura DPi	29	1'50.539
2	Earl Bamber Alex Lynn	DPi	Cadillac DPi	29	1'50.835	0.296
3	Olivier Pla Pipo Derani	DPi	Cadillac DPi	35	1'51.051	0.512
4	Oliver Jarvis Tom Blomqvist	DPi	Acura DPi	28	1'51.055	0.516
5	Renger van der Zande Sébastien Bourdais	DPi	Cadillac DPi	18	1'51.095	0.556
6	Tristan Vautier Richard Westbrook	DPi	Cadillac DPi	31	1'52.000	1.461
7	Dwight Merriman Ryan Dalziel	LMP2	ORECA LMP2 07	31	1'52.147	1.608
8	Steven Thomas Tristan Nunez	LMP2	ORECA LMP2 07	33	1'52.879	2.340
9	Henrik Hedman Juan Pablo Montoya	LMP2	ORECA LMP2 07	34	1'53.144	2.605
10	John Farano Louis Deletraz	LMP2	ORECA LMP2 07	33	1'53.161	2.622
11	Patrick Kelly Josh Pierson	LMP2	ORECA LMP2 07	29	1'53.993	3.454
12	Dennis Andersen Fabio Scherer	LMP2	ORECA LMP2 07	33	1'54.780	4.241
13	Joao Barbosa Malthe Jakobsen	LMP3	Ligier JS P320	20	2'00.439	9.900
14	Gar Robinson Felipe Fraga	LMP3	Ligier JS P320	27	2'00.736	10.197
15	Gerry Kraut Scott Andrews	LMP3	Duqueine D08	28	2'00.877	10.338
16	Dakota Dickerson Josh Sarchet	LMP3	Ligier JS P320	25	2'01.307	10.768
17	Jon Bennett Colin Braun	LMP3	Ligier JS P320	23	2'01.353	10.814
18	Ari Balogh Garett Grist	LMP3	Ligier JS P320	27	2'01.649	11.110
19	Jarett Andretti Gabby Chaves	LMP3	Ligier JS P320	27	2'02.369	11.830
20	Orey Fidani Matthew Bell	LMP3	Duqueine D08	28	2'02.607	12.068
21	James French Cameron Shields	LMP3	Ligier JS P320	10	2'02.962	12.423
22	Robert Megennis Jeff Westphal	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	27	2'06.366	15.827
23	Jaden Conwright Marco Holzer	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	28	2'06.437	15.898
24	Frankie Montecalvo Aaron Telitz	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	28	2'06.509	15.970
25	Connor de Phillippi John Edwards	GTD PRO	BMW M4 GT3	23	2'06.637	16.098
26	Robby Foley Bill Auberlen	GTD	BMW M4 GT3	30	2'06.920	16.381
27	Jack Hawksworth Ben Barnicoat	GTD PRO	Lexus RC F GT3	15	2'06.971	16.432
28	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	GTD PRO	Corvette C8.R GTD	30	2'07.019	16.480
29	Matt Campbell Mathieu Jaminet	GTD PRO	Porsche 911 GT3 R	25	2'07.121	16.582
30	Russell Ward Philip Ellis	GTD	Mercedes AMG GT3	32	2'07.475	16.936
31	Ryan Eversley Aidan Read	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	29	2'07.495	16.956
32	Ryan Hardwick Jan Heylen	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	31	2'07.720	17.181
33	Cooper MacNeil Daniel Juncadella	GTD	Mercedes AMG GT3	30	2'07.865	17.326
34	Ross Gunn Alex Riberas	GTD PRO	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	24	2'08.071	17.532
35	Mike Skeen Stevan McAleer	GTD	Mercedes AMG GT3	26	2'08.350	17.811
View full results