It is the General Motors cars that take center stage at the end of the third test session of the Roar Before the 24, collective tests that the protagonists of the IMSA SportsCar Championship undertake to prepare for next week's 24h of Daytona.
After the first activities that began on Friday, this morning under a beautiful sun the 59 cars registered for the first event of the 2024 American season returned to action for the first 90' scheduled today, fortunately without interruptions albeit with some errors and failures. track has been seen.
In the GTP Class it is Pipo Derani who repeats himself, putting the #31 Cadillac ahead of everyone: after the best time achieved on Friday afternoon, the Action Express Racing standard-bearer confirms himself at the top in 1'35″372, obtaining the reference already in the very first laps, and then concentrating the rest of the work on multiple laps, which others have also done.
The red V-Series.R is closely followed by the private Porsche #85 of JDC-Miller Motorsports which is just 0″026 behind, while the BMW #25 of Team RLL is third at +0″308, trailing for Chip Ganassi Racing's #01 Cadillac.
The Acura #10 of WTR Andretti closes in the Top5 with half a second of delay, its sister #40 is eighth and between the two ARX-06s we find two other Porsches, with the #5 of Proton Competition doing better than the official #6 of Team Penske putting together several laps and starting to make up ground after the time lost yesterday to finish sorting out the last things.
The top 10 in the category is completed by the second Porsche #7 of Team Penske and the BMW #24 of RLL with gaps above second.
Photo by: Richard Dole / Motorsport Images
#31: Whelen Cadillac Racing, Cadillac VSeries.R, GTP: Pipo Derani, Jack Aitken, Tom Blomqvist
In the LMP2 Class, Oreca dominates, led by the #88 of AF Corse which Nicklas Nielsen puts at the top of the rankings at the start in 1'38″576. The #11 of TDS Racing stops 0″043 behind the Dane, pulling behind the #04 of APR, the #81 of DragonSpeed and the #52 of Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen in a Top5 enclosed in just 0″393.
The 07-Gibson #74 of Riley finishes sixth, putting the #18 of Era Motorsport behind him, the #2 of United Autosports does not shine this time and is eighth, half a second behind the leader.
In the Top10 we also find the #8 of Tower Motorsports and the #20 of MDK by High Class Racing at 8 tenths, the ranking is completed by the Oreca #99 of AO Racing and #22 of United Autosports, divided by the Ligier #33 of Sean Creech Motorsport , which is the last to remain within a second of detachment from the top.
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
#88 Richard Mille AF Corse ORECA LMP2-Gibson: Luis Perez Companc, Nicklas Nielsen, Lilou Wadoux Ducellier, Matthieu Vaxiviere
The good start to the day for GM, as we said at the beginning, sees the Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette #4 take the lead among the GT3s and come first in the GTD PRO.
Tommy Milner lapped in 1'45″844 with the Z06 GT3.R, pushing already after the third lap, which allowed him to finish with a half-second margin on the #64 Multimatic Ford Mustang, which also suffered a slowdown in the second half of tests.
Third is the Porsche 'Rexy' #77 of AO Racing, then there is the Lexus #14 of Vasser Sullivan and the second Mustang #65 to finish in the Top5, outside of which the McLaren #9 of Pfaff Motorsports remains with 0.7″ on the rump.
The Lamborghini #60 of Iron Lynx also holds an almost similar gap and is seventh, closely followed by the Mercedes #75 of Sun Energy 1 and the Ferrari #62 of Risi Competizione.
Finally, among the top ten in this category is the Aston Martin #23 of Heart of Racing, which comes behind the Lamborghini #19 of Iron Lynx, the BMW #1 of Paul Miller Racing and the Corvette #3.
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
#45 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2: Kyle Marcelli, Danny Formal, Graham Doyle, Ashton Harrison
The cars in the GTD category engage in duels with the PROs and here the Lamborghini #45 of WTR Andretti comes out on top in 1'45″986, beating the Porsches #43 of Andretti and the #92 of MDK Motorsports by just a few tenths, placing second, third and fourth place among all GT3s.
Top5 for the #55 Mustang of Proton Competition and the #17 Corvette of AWA, followed by the #12 Lexus of Vasser Sullivan and the #70 McLaren of Inception Racing.
Eighth place, just over half a second behind the Huracan leader for the Porsche #120 of Wright Motorsports, the Lamborghini #78 of Forte Racing and the Ferrari #47 of Cetilar Racing also enter the top ten GTDs, confirming a rather good ranking here too. short where clearly the difference is made by the professional drivers made available to the gentlemen by the Manufacturers.
The fourth session lasting 60' is scheduled for 9.10pm Italian time, while the fifth 120' session will start at 0.30am.
#IMSA #DaytonaRoar #Session #smiles #CadillacCorvette
