Tandy leads opening Sebring practice

Porsche Penske Motorsport’s pursuit of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring prize is off to a good start this morning: Nick Tandy set the fastest time in the opening practice session aboard the No. 7 Porsche 963 which he shares with fellow Rolex 24 At Daytona winners Felipe Nasr and Laurens Vanthoor.

Tandy led the GTP class with his best lap time of 1m48.651s on a warm, sunny morning.

AF Corse’s Nicklas Nielsen set the pace in LMP2 with a best time of 1m50.403s in the No. 88 ORECA 07.

In GTD PRO, Davide Rigon led the way in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 (2m00.866s), but the fastest GT time was set by GTD leaders, Winward Racing and Russell Ward in the No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 (2m00.787s).

Today’s 90-minute practice session began with some software-related troubles for the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963, as Mathieu Jaminet stopped coming around Turn 6 into Turn 7. The Frenchman was able to get his car going again but not before bringing out the first red flag.

A second, longer red flag was waved 26 minutes into the session when the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 of Danny Formal crashed into the barriers. Formal dropped a wheel on the exit of Turn 2 and spun off to the drivers’ left-hand side into the wall. The Costa Rican driver was checked and released from the circuit care center with no significant injuries. But the chrome silver Lamborghini suffered heavy rear-end damage that may take some time to repair.

IMSA’s newest LMP2 bronze driver, Jeremy Clarke, went off at Turn 5 in his No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA to bring out the third red flag with less than 15 minutes to go.

Behind the No. 7 Porsche, second and third place in GTP were the two Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06es. It was the red and white No. 93 ARX-06 of Nick Yelloly in second with a 1m48.796s, followed by the blue and white No. 60 of Colin Braun in third (1m48.832s). Jaminet ended up setting the fourth-fastest time in the No. 6 Porsche with a 1m49.006s.

The fastest of the two BMW M Hybrid V8s was the No. 24 Team RLL BMW of Philipp Eng in fifth, then the best of the three Cadillac V-Series.Rs, the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Filipe Albuquerque in sixth.

Romain Grosjean found a competitive single-lap pace in the No. 63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63, within 1.2s of the best time in GTP, in 11th place.

The much-anticipated practice debut for the No. 23 Aston Martin The Heart Of Racing Team Valkyrie started bizarrely with a 60-second stop-and-hold penalty for working on the car during the preceding Porsche Carrera Cup North America qualifying session.

Once the car was able to get on track, the rest of the session was trouble-free for the V12 Valkyrie. Alex Riberas’ best time of 1m51.304s was 2.6s off the top of GTP and in the middle of the LMP2 pack, but Heart of Racing Team has set modest expectations for the event and the car should gain pace as the week progresses.

Sebastien Bourdais was second fastest in LMP2 aboard the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA, followed by Tom Dillmann for Inter Europol Competition in third.

In GTD PRO, Laurin Heinrich was only 0.034s off the best time from Rigon in the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, with Ford Multimatic Motorsports’ Sebastian Priaulx not far off them in the No. 64 Ford Mustang GT3.

Kenton Koch made it a Mercedes 1-2 in GTD aboard the No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG, followed by the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Daniel Serra in third.