Bell On Top In Friday Practice at Sebring
Jaxon Bell led Friday practice around Sebring International Raceway for Copeland Motorsports...
Photo: Fred Hardy/SRO
Jaxon Bell set the overall fastest Toyota GR Cup North America practice lap of the day at Sebring International Raceway, with his Practice 1-leading time proving unbeatable over the pair of Friday practice sessions.
The current points leader laid down at 2:23.742 laps on his third of nine attempts in the 30-minute morning practice session to pace the 22-car field in his No. 7 Copeland Motorsports Toyota GR86 Cup car.
BSI Racing’s Westin Workman was second-fastest on the day, just 0.591 seconds off of Bell’s overall pace with his best effort from first practice.
Practice 2 pace-setter John Dean was third on the day, with his fastest lap from Practice 1 placing him less than a second down on Bell in his Legends class Copeland Toyota.
TechSport’s Ethan Goulart was fourth-fastest overall ahead of Spike Kohlbecker, who rounded out the overall top five times of the day in the No. 55 RVA Graphics Motorsports by Speed Syndicate GR86.
Overall, drivers reeled off quicker lap times around the 3.7-mile Florida road course in slightly cooler Practice 1 conditions. Nevertheless, it was tight at the top of the Practice 2 time sheets, with Dean’s 2:25.901 benchmark proving fastest in the afternoon by just 0.004 seconds.
A red flag quickly interrupted running in Practice 2 when multi-car contact on the front straight scattered debris on the track, though running resumed with 19 minutes remaining. Practice 1, by comparison, ran entirely green for its half-hour duration.
While all 22 cars recorded lap times in first practice, only Christian Weir’s TechSport Toyota was unable to set a representative time in Practice 2, despite two total completed laps.
Near the end of the session, Beltre Curtis spun temporarily on track but then continued on with only a local yellow brought out before the Copeland driver continued.
Qualifying 1 for GR Cup North America is slated for 8:45 a.m. EST Saturday morning ahead of the first of two weekend races at 1:40 p.m. EST.
RESULTS: Practice 1/Practice 2
