Sebring 12 Hours: Nasr tops first practice in AXR Cadillac
Ex-Formula 1 driver Felipe Nasr led the 38-car IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship field in opening practice for the Sebring 12 Hours, while Earl Bamber put Porsche on top in GT Le Mans.
Photo by: Art Fleischmann
In the 75-minute session there were two red flags for spins at Turn 5 – one by the PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca and the second by the #85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac.
Eventually Nasr’s time, set on the #31 AXR Cadillac DPi-V.R’s eighth of 17 laps, held up by 0.355sec over Dane Cameron’s best in the #6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05, which was less than one tenth quicker than Renger van der Zande was third in the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac.
Nasr's fulltime partner for 2019 is Pipo Derani a two-time winner of Sebring, and that has added some impetus to the lineup which in the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds such as this includes Eric Curran, with whom Derani won the Prototype title in 2018.
Romain Dumas slotted the CORE autosport Nissan into fourth ahead of Tristan Vautier’s JDC Caddy.
Gabriel Aubry’s top lap put PR1/Mathaiasen ahead of Performance Tech Motorsports in LMP2.
In GTLM, the Porsche 911 RSRs of Bamber and Patrick Pilet sandwiched the two Ford GTs of Richard Westbrook and Joey Hand, while Bamber wound up a full second quicker than the best of the Corvettes, and 1.8sec quicker than the second.
The Acura NSX of Meyer Shank Racing led GT Daytona, Mario Farnbacher 0.45sec faster than Pat Long in the Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
Aaron Telitz (AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus), Rolf Ineichen (Grasser Lamborghini), Toni Vilander (Scuderia Corsa Ferrari) and Jeroen Bleekemolen (Riley Motorsports Mercedes) ensured six different manufacturers filling the top six slots.
Practice times:
Pos. | No. | Drivers | Class | Chassis | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 31 | Pipo Derani Eric Curran Felipe Nasr |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'46.996 | |
2 | 6 | Juan Pablo Montoya Simon Pagenaud Dane Cameron |
DPi | Acura DPi | 1'47.351 | 0.355 |
3 | 10 | Jordan Taylor Renger van der Zande Matthieu Vaxiviere |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'47.389 | 0.393 |
4 | 54 | Romain Dumas Jon Bennett Colin Braun |
DPi | Nissan DPi | 1'47.806 | 0.810 |
5 | 85 | Juan Piedrahita Mikhail Goikhberg Tristan Vautier |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'48.027 | 1.031 |
6 | 7 | Alexander Rossi Helio Castroneves Ricky Taylor |
DPi | Acura DPi | 1'48.186 | 1.190 |
7 | 5 | Brendon Hartley Filipe Albuquerque Joao Barbosa |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'48.270 | 1.274 |
8 | 84 | Simon Trummer Chris Miller Stephen Simpson |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'48.359 | 1.363 |
9 | 55 | Harry Tincknell Olivier Pla Jonathan Bomarito |
DPi | Mazda DPi | 1'48.536 | 1.540 |
10 | 77 | Oliver Jarvis Timo Bernhard Tristan Nunez |
DPi | Mazda DPi | 1'48.857 | 1.861 |
11 | 50 | Rene Binder Will Owen Agustin Canapino |
DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'50.002 | 3.006 |
12 | 52 | Matt McMurry Anders Fjordbach Gabriel Aubry |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 | 1'50.877 | 3.881 |
13 | 38 | Kyle Masson Cameron Cassels Andrew Evans |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 | 1'52.468 | 5.472 |
14 | 912 | Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor Mathieu Jaminet |
GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR | 1'56.983 | 9.987 |
15 | 67 | Ryan Briscoe Scott Dixon Richard Westbrook |
GTLM | Ford GT | 1'57.313 | 10.317 |
16 | 66 | Sébastien Bourdais Joey Hand Dirk Muller |
GTLM | Ford GT | 1'57.480 | 10.484 |
17 | 911 | Nick Tandy Patrick Pilet Frédéric Makowiecki |
GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR | 1'57.594 | 10.598 |
18 | 4 | Marcel Fassler Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner |
GTLM | Corvette C7.R | 1'57.991 | 10.995 |
19 | 3 | Jan Magnussen Antonio Garcia Mike Rockenfeller |
GTLM | Corvette C7.R | 1'58.818 | 11.822 |
20 | 25 | Connor de Phillippi Tom Blomqvist Colton Herta |
GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 1'58.838 | 11.842 |
21 | 24 | John Edwards Jesse Krohn Philipp Eng |
GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 1'59.142 | 12.146 |
22 | 86 | Justin Marks Mario Farnbacher Trent Hindman |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 2'00.793 | 13.797 |
23 | 73 | Patrick Long Patrick Lindsey Nicholas Boulle |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 2'01.240 | 14.244 |
24 | 12 | Townsend Bell Frankie Montecalvo Aaron Telitz |
GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 2'01.448 | 14.452 |
25 | 11 | Rolf Ineichen Mirko Bortolotti Rik Breukers |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 2'01.521 | 14.525 |
26 | 63 | Toni Vilander Cooper MacNeil Jeff Westphal |
GTD | Ferrari 488 GT3 | 2'01.593 | 14.597 |
27 | 33 | Jeroen Bleekemolen Ben Keating Felipe Fraga |
GTD | Mercedes-AMG GT3 | 2'01.653 | 14.657 |
28 | 14 | Jack Hawksworth Philipp Frommenwiler Richard Heistand |
GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 2'01.700 | 14.704 |
29 | 57 | Katherine Legge Christina Nielsen Ana Beatriz |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 2'01.775 | 14.779 |
30 | 96 | Bill Auberlen Robby Foley Dillon Machavern |
GTD | BMW M6 GT3 | 2'01.809 | 14.813 |
31 | 48 | Corey Lewis Bryan Sellers Ryan Hardwick |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 2'01.941 | 14.945 |
32 | 29 | Daniel Morad Christopher Mies Richard Feller |
GTD | Audi R8 LMS GT3 | 2'02.002 | 15.006 |
33 | 71 | Fabian Schiller Maximilian Buhk JC Perez |
GTD | Mercedes-AMG GT3 | 2'02.194 | 15.198 |
34 | 9 | Scott Hargrove Lars Kern Zacharie Robichon |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 2'02.267 | 15.271 |
35 | 8 | Ryan Dalziel Parker Chase Ezequiel Perez Companc |
GTD | Audi R8 LMS GT3 | 2'02.667 | 15.671 |
36 | 47 | Brandon Gdovic Lawson Aschenbach Don Yount |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 2'02.899 | 15.903 |
37 | 19 | Andrew Davis Will Hardeman Alex Riberas |
GTD | Audi R8 LMS GT3 | 2'03.244 | 16.248 |
38 | 44 | Andy Lally Spencer Pumpelly John Potter |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 |
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