VIR IMSA: Westbrook quickest for Ford in first practice

Westbrook set the quickest time on the very last lap of the session, ahead of Porsche’s Earl Bamber and the sister Ford of Joey Hand.

The session was red flagged after just a handful of laps to retrieve the GT Daytona championship-leading Lamborghini Huracan of Bryan Sellars, which laid an oil slick before pulling off between Turns 11 & 12.

Sellars had set the pace in GTD at the time, at 1m45.565s, but the Paul Miller Racing car now requires a new engine before the second session.

The track went green again with 33 minutes of the hour-long session left, with Dirk Muller taking P1 with 1m43.593s in the #66 Ford GT, before Ganassi Racing teammate Ryan Briscoe grabbed it with 1m43.394s in the #67 for a Ford 1-2.

Corvette’s Jan Magnussen was the first to break the 1m43s barrier, setting 1m42.951s with a quarter of the session remaining. Earl Bamber eclipsed it by a margin though, with a lap of 1m42.761s.

Hand (in for Muller in #66) had set the second fastest lap in the closing stages with 1m42.793s – just 0.032s shy of Bamber’s fastest lap at the time. But, having taken over from Briscoe, then Westbrook bested them all with a 1m42.627s, over a tenth clear of Bamber and Hand.

Magnussen stayed fourth, with Patrick Pilet fifth in the second Porsche, ahead of the quickest BMW of Alexander Sims.

The sidelined Sellars didn’t keep his top spot in GTD, with Jack Hawksworth’s Lexus topping the timesheets with 1m48.596s, ahead of Jeroen Bleekemolen’s Mercedes.

However, Bleekemolen’s teammate Ben Keating was forced out of the session with five minutes remaining. Andy Lally was third quickest in the Magnus Audi, ahead of Sellars.

Session results:

Pos	#	Driver	Class	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	67	Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook	GTLM	Ford GT	1'42.627
2	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	1'42.761	0.134
3	66	Joey Hand Dirk Muller	GTLM	Ford GT	1'42.793	0.166
4	3	Jan Magnussen Antonio Garcia	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	1'42.951	0.324
5	911	Nick Tandy Patrick Pilet	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	1'42.970	0.343
6	25	Connor de Phillippi Alexander Sims	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'43.055	0.428
7	4	Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	1'43.360	0.733
8	24	John Edwards Jesse Krohn	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'44.101	1.474
9	15	David Heinemeier Hansson Jack Hawksworth	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	1'45.160	2.533
10	33	Jeroen Bleekemolen Ben Keating	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	1'45.190	2.563
11	44	Andy Lally John Potter	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	1'45.440	2.813
12	48	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	1'45.565	2.938
13	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	1'45.583	2.956
14	93	Justin Marks Lawson Aschenbach	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'45.607	2.980
15	86	Katherine Legge Mario Farnbacher	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'45.608	2.981
16	58	Patrick Long Christina Nielsen	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	1'45.821	3.194
17	63	Cooper MacNeil Gunnar Jeannette	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	1'46.455	3.828
18	14	Kyle Marcelli Dominik Baumann	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	1'46.487	3.860