The sole TUSCC track session on the Friday at DIS was the fourth and final 60-minute practice session which began at 11.30 on another sunny but very cold Florida morning. Prior to its starting, the paddock was again a very busy and noisy place, and the good news was that the #49 Spirit of Race Ferrari 458 would be ready to run for the first time since the previous morning; an engine failure in the first practice session curtailing the day for Piergiuseppe Perazzini, Gianluca Roda, Paolo Ruberti and Davide Rigon. Matt Griffin, meanwhile, admitted that a brush with the wall during qualifying had resulted in a bent steering arm and a lowly result in the #51 GTD Ferrari. The car was back up to speed during night practice.
DSC was in conversation with Paul Miller Racing’s Matt Bell when the news came through that the team’s appeal against its qualifying disqualification had been successful, the British driver having already explained that the wing end-plates at the centre of the dispute had been in no way modified – as per instructions from Audi – and that an email trail going back some weeks confirmed this.
Having managed to go the full 90 minutes of night practice without a stoppage, the red lights were flashing before the ten-minute mark in P4. The cause was an unfortunate visit to the tyrewall for the #25 8Star Oreca in the infield after a coming together with a couple of other cars. Enzo Potolicchio had only completed two laps by this point, following the car’s rebuild, so this was the last thing he needed. Despite this, it was a short break and the session went green again with 47 minutes left. For the first time we had an LMP2 topping the times at the restart, but Gustavo Yacaman’s 1:46 in the #42 OAK Morgan could hardly be considered to be a representative time; and indeed Brendon Hartley was soon in P1 having lowered the bar to 1:40 in the #78 Starworks DP.
At the 30 minute mark, Mike Rockenfeller had the #90 SDR Corvette DP at the top of the screens, but Alex Gurney decided to speed things up in the #99 Bob Stallings Corvette DP and dropped into the 1:39s to pull almost a second clear. Frankie Montecalvo headed PC in the #52 PR1 Oreca, Matteo Malucelli topped GTLM in the #62 Risi Ferrari, and Markus Palttala led GTD in the #94 Turner BMW Z4. Alex Popow soon usurped Montecalvo in the #7 Starworks FLM, but the session was then interrupted by a second red as Duncan Ende ground to a halt at Turn 1 in the #09 RSR Racing PC. Again, though, it was a short stoppage.
Things began to get closer at the top of the screens over the remaining time, but Richard Westbrook made a final push on his 20th and last lap to leave the #90 SDR DP once more in P1. Sam Bird set a 1:42.176 in the #8 Starworks Oreca to head PC.
Malucelli’s 1:45.007 was good enough to keep the Risi Ferrari at the top of the GTLM times, while there was also a prancing horse at the top of GTD, courtesy of a 1:48.073 from Guy Cosmo in the #556 Level 5 458 Italia.
The only car not to take part in the session was the DeltaWing.
MH
