Sargent Quickest in First Practice at COTA

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Tom Sargent topped the time charts in the opening GT World Challenge America powered by AWS practice at Circuit of The Americas.

The newly minted Porsche Motorsport North America Selected Driver reeled off a chart-topping 2:03.430 lap time in his No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R to go quickest in the 60-minute session.

Sargent’s time was 0.084 seconds quicker than the No. 11 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Matt Bell, with Kyle Marcelli third quickest in the No. 92 LAB Motorsport by GT Racing Porsche.

Darren Turner and Robby Foley completed the top-five for Heart of Racing Team and Turner Motorsport, respectively, which were all Pro-Am clas scars.

The No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Mikael Grenier was quickest of the Pro class competitors in sixth, while Ozz Negri topped the Am class in the No. 163 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, in a class that features two cars this weekend.

The session came to an early end with seven minutes to go for an incident by Grenier’s co-driver Michai Stephens in the JMF Mercedes-AMG that resulted in a red flag.

The No. 88 Archangel Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3 of Todd Coleman, meanwhile, was handed a five-minute stop-and-hold penalty at the start of the session for incident responsibility from an incident in Thursday’s Paid Bronze Test session.

It set the 11th quickest time overall in the hands of co-driver Aaron Telitz.

The second and final practice of the day is scheduled for 3:20 p.m. CST.

RESULTS: Practice 1