The defending race-winning #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Konica Minolta Corvette Daytona Prototype led Friday’s opening IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Jordan Taylor led both.
Jordan, who will be joined by his brother Ricky in the two-hour, 40-minute race, downplayed his team’s advantage, with the track experiencing intermittent rain showers. The top six Prototypes were separated by just 1.010 seconds.
“We were quickest in both sessions, but that doesn’t mean much, because both were messy with rain coming in and out,” Jordan Taylor said. “We tried a few things on the car to make it quicker. It’s going to be a long race and a lot can happen, but today we relied on our experience with the limited amount of time.”
Coming off of a 1-2 finish in the recent Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, Action Express Racing took the next two positions on the charts. Christian Fittipaldi, who won at The Glen, was second fastest with a lap of 1:11.345 (124.0 mph) in the #5 Corvette DP co-driven by Joao Barbosa, followed by Dane Cameron, 1:11.483 (123.8 mph) in the #31 Whelen Engineering/Team Fox Corvette DP co-driven by Eric Curran.
Bill Auberlen paced the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class, running 1:15.961 (116.5 mph) in the #25 BMW Team RLL BMW M6 GTLM co-driven by Dirk Werner. Corvette Racing took the next two positions. Tommy Milner ran 1:16.132 (116.2 mph) in the #4 Corvette C7.R co-driven by Oliver Gavin, with the #3 Corvette C7.R of Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen next at 1:16.203 (116.1 mph).
“This is the best car that BMW has ever built to go on this track,” Auberlen said. “We started this year with a brand-new M6 GTLM, and these guys really learned all about it on the fast track like you couldn’t believe. BMW, the Rahal team, and everyone has really made an amazing car for this event.”
In GT Daytona (GTD), Andy Lally led both sessions, running the best lap of the day, 1:17.702 (113.9 mph) in the afternoon session in the #44 Magnus Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 co-driven by John Potter.
Seeking a third consecutive victory in Prototype Challenge (PC), Renger van der Zande unofficially broke the track record with a lap of 1:12.13 in the #8 Starworks Motorsport ORECA FLM09 co-driven by Alex Popow.
The #20 BAR1 PC Oreca was second fastest after the team spent two days at Watkins Glen rebuilding the badly damaged car after a clash between James French and Johnny Mowlem saw the #20 car wrecked.
Matt McMurry is co-driving with Johnny Mowlem this weekend.
