Cadillac takes the cake in this Friday of testing for the 24 Hours of Daytona, the first event of the 2024 IMSA SportsCar Championship which has seen a V-Series.R finish ahead of everyone three times.
Also in Free Practice 3 it was a General Motors LMDh built on a Dallara chassis that took the overall lead and in the GTP Class, this time thanks to Pipo Derani, who lapped in 1'35″708 at the wheel of the #31 Action Express Racing.
During the 90' session held in the evening, the first interruption of the day occurred due to the Oreca #74 driven by Josh Burdon going off the track; the Riley driver hit the barriers at turn 6, but then managed to return to the pits to repair his LMP2.
Behind Derani we find another Porsche, this time the official #7 of Team Penske burdened by 0″310, followed closely by the #01 Cadillac of Chip Ganassi Racing which had dominated in the first two sessions of the day.
The BMWs #25 and #24 of Team RLL maintain their wheels in the Top5, albeit lagging behind by 0″6, while the Acuras continue their apparent ordeal by obtaining the sixth and ninth fastest times with the #40 and #10 between 8 tenths and the second late.
Among the ARX-06 LMDhs are the JDC-Miller Motorsports #85 and Penske #6 Porsches, with the Proton Competition 963 #5 rounding out the list at 1.3 seconds.
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
#04 CROWDSTRIKE Racing by APR ORECA LMP2-Gibson: George Kurtz, Colin Braun, Toby Sowery, Malthe Jakobsen
In the LMP2 Class, Malthe Jakobsen made a big statement with the Oreca #04 of APR in 1'39″166, trailing the #2 of United Autosports by 0″306 and the #18 of Era Motorsport by 0″477.
Tower #8 and TDS Racing #11 are much further apart at over 0.7s in the remaining Top5 positions, followed even further by MDK by High Class Racing #20 and Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports #52, both over a second by delay from the summit.
AF Corse #88 and United #22 complete the top ten list alongside Sean Creech Motorsport's Ligier, with the #74 Riley ultimately 11th ahead of AO Racing's #99 Oreca in 'Spike' livery and DragonSpeed #81 .
Photo by: Art Fleischmann
#64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3: Harry Tincknell, Mike Rockenfeller, Christopher Mies
Among the GT3s this time there is a poker of GTD PRO cars at the top of the times led by the Corvettes. Having resolved the engine problems suffered in the morning and early afternoon sessions, the Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.Rs finished in first and second place.
1'46″770 is the time of Earl Bamber with the #4, 88 thousandths better than the #3 of his teammate Alex Sims, while a few laps put them together with the Ford Mustang #64 of Multimatic struggling with some other problems, still fourth at +0″253.
James Calado puts the Ferrari #62 of Risi Competizione in the Top5 with a half-second margin, keeping the BMW #1 of Paul Miller Racing and the Aston Martin #23 of Heart Of Racing behind him.
A full second behind the Mercedes #75 of Sun Energy 1 and the Mustang #65, which together with the Lamborghini #19 of Iron Lynx complete the Top10.
Outside of this remain the Porsche-'Rexy' #77 of AO Racing, the McLaren #9 of Pfaff Motorsports and the Lexus #14 of VasserSullivan.
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
#86 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R: Kerong Li, Anders Fjordbach, Larry ten Voorde, Klaus Bachler
In GTD the Porsche #86 of MDK Motorsports gives an encore, this time at the hands of Larry Ten Voorde with a time of 1'47″075 which keeps him in the lead by 0″022 over the Lamborghini #45 of WTR Andretti, chased by the Ferrari # 47 by Cetilar Racing.
Among these cars the ranking is much closer and the McLaren #70 of Inception Racing takes fourth place at 0″3, beating the Porsche #92 of Kellymoss with Riley by a hundredths.
Sixth fastest time for the BMW #96 of Turner Motorsport, while the Ferrari #34 of Conquest Racing drops to seventh after a good first part of the day.
Nice climb back into the Top10 for the Iron Dames with the Lamborghini #83 +0″638 from the leader, obtaining eighth place with the Mercedes of Korthoff/Preston #32 and Winward Racing #57 behind them to close the Top10, out of which they remain the #21 AF Corse Ferrari and the #17 AWA Corvette.
For today the hostilities end here, the protagonists will return to action on Friday late morning for Free Practice 4, scheduled for 5.20pm Italian time and lasting just 60'; this will be the last opportunity to prepare for the race, with the green flag on Saturday at 7.40pm in the Bel Paese.
#IMSA #Daytona #Free #Practice #Cadillac #reigns #Corvettes
