Porsche and Lamborghini achieved excellent times in Session 1 of the Roar Before the 24 tests, i.e. the official tests that act as a starter for the 24h of Daytona, the first event of the 2024 IMSA SportsCar Championship scheduled for next week.
During the 90' available to the competitors there were a couple of interruptions: the first for a few minutes, just enough time to clear Turn 4 of debris, while the second red flag was waved 20' from the end due to of a spin that saw Dennis Andersen hit the wall in turn 5 with the Oreca #20 of High Class Racing, which was however quickly removed, giving everyone the opportunity to return to the Florida International Raceway for the finale.
The sun's rays made their way through some threatening black clouds, but the rain that had fallen on Wednesday was not visible at the moment and in the GTP Class it was the Porsche #6 of Team Penske that stood out from the start, finishing in 1'35″617 thanks to Nick Tandy and preceding by just over a tenth the pair of BMW M Hybrid V8s from Team RLL who placed second and third, with the #24 ahead of the #25.
Following in the Top5 we find the Cadillac #01 of Chip Ganassi Racing and #31 of Action Express Racing, respectively 0″259 and 0″412 behind.
Behind the V-Series.R we have the two Acuras of WTR Andretti which see the #40 improve right at the end, overtaking the #10 ARX-06, overtaking the second official 963 managed by Team Penske (#7) and the private #85 of JDC-Miller Motorsports.
Technical problems instead kept the #5 of Proton Competition stuck in the pits, only seen in action at the start of practice for an immediate exit and return lap, and then completing just one lap in the last minute checking that everything was in order.
Photo by: Richard Dole / Motorsport Images
#01: Cadillac Racing, Cadillac VSeries.R, GTP: Renger van der Zande, Sebastien Bourdais, Scott Dixon
In the LMP2 Class, United Autosports took the top spot with the Oreca #22 in 1'39″916, just ahead of the #8 of Tower Motorsport and the #88 of AF Corse, while the aforementioned #30 of High Class Racing finishes in the Top5 with half a second behind along with the #81 of DragonSpeed.
Sixth time for the second Oreca of United Autosports branded by the #2, seventh is the #11 of TDS Racing ahead of the #74 of Riley, the #04 of APR and the #18 of Era Motorsports in the Top10 of the category, out of which the only Ligier entered by Sean Creech Motorsports remains with the #33.
Coming instead to the GT3 cars, in this first outing the best time was the Acura #66 of Gradient Racing entered in the GTD category, stopping the clock at 1'46″289, better than the 1'46″918 set by the Iron Lynx's Lamborghini #60, the fastest of the GTD PROs.
The new AWA Corvette #17 is third overall and second among the GTDs, a category which sees the Ferrari 296 GT3 #47 of Cetilar Racing on the virtual podium, +0″777 from the leader although further back overall.
Moving forward with the GTDs, fourth time for the Lexus #12 of Vasser Sullivan, fifth for the Porsche #120 of Wright Motorsports to beat the Ferrari #21 of AF Corse by a few hundredths.
Over a second away from the reference time here is the #70 McLaren of Inception Racing, seventh, keeping ahead of the #45 Lamborghinis of WTR Andretti and #78 of Forte Racing, with the other AWA Corvette (#13) completing the leaders ten of the group, which during the tests lost the #32 Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes driven at the time by Mike Skeen due to an off-track exit.
Photo by: Richard Dole / Motorsport Images
#19: Iron Lynx, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, GTD PRO: Franck Perera, Jordan Pepper, Mirko Bortolotti, Andrea Caldarelli
To complete the GTD PRO discussion, a double was served for the Iron Lynx which has the Huracan #19 in second place with just +0″022 of delay in a Top5 truly contained in a narrow space.
This is because the Ferrari 296 #62 of Risi Competizione is just two thousandths of a second behind its green-black rival, placing third and beating the pair of brand new Ford Mustangs #65 and #64, which are 0.150s away from the record.
The Lexus #14 of Vasser Sullivan Racing finishes sixth, a couple of tenths behind the Lambos, while the two official Pratt Miller Corvettes are in seventh and eighth place, but with just over 0.7 seconds to recover.
The Top10 is completed by the Mercedes #75 of Sun Energy 1 and the BMW #1 of Paul Miller Racing, both more than 1″ from the best, followed by the Porsche 'Rexy' #77 of AO Racing, the McLaren #9 of Pfaff Motorsports and from the Aston Martin #23 of Heart Of Racing.
The second session of the Roar tests is scheduled for 10.15pm Italian time.
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