Tandy Quickest in Opening Sebring Practice
Porsche Penske Motorsport leads way in first practice for Twelve Hours of Sebring...
Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA
Nick Tandy led the way in the first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice for this weekend’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Tandy, in the GTP championship-leading No. 7 Penske Porsche 963, reeled off a chart-topping 1:48.651 in the session, edging out the No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Nick Yelloly by 0.145 seconds.
MSR teammate Colin Braun recorded the third quickest time of the session in the No. 60 entry.
The No. 6 Penske Porsche of Mathieu Jaminet was fourth, with Philipp Eng completing the top-five in the No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8.
The WeatherTech Championship debuting No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie set the 20th quickest time overall, more than 2.5 seconds slower than Tandy’s benchmark.
LMP2 was led by the No. 88 AF Corse Oreca 07 Gibson of Nicklas Nielsen, who set a 1:50.403 time.
The No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Indy Dontje was quickest of the GT cars, thanks to a 2:00.767 lap time by the Dutchman in the GTD class entry.
Davide Rigon put the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 atop the time sheets in GTD, setting the third quickest time in the production-based ranks, behind the No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Kenton Koch.
The session saw three red flags, the first for the No. 6 Penske Porsche of Jaminet, who stopped on track with a software-related issue on his out lap in the opening moments of the session.
It was followed by an accident by Danny Formal in the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, who made left-side contact with the barriers in Turn 2.
Formal’s hit damaged the barriers, which required repairs and cost roughly 20 minutes of green flag run time.
Daniel Goldberg spun and made contact with the Turn 3 barriers in his No. 22 United Autosports Oreca, although brought the car back to the pits under its own power without the need for a red flag.
A third and final red came out for the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca of Jeremy Clarke, who went off in Turn 5.
Practice 2 is set for a 3:05 p.m. EST start time.
