Friday was a busy day for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with two Free Practice Sessions and Qualifying for the Chevrolet SportsCar Classic at the Belle Isle Street Course in Detroit, Michigan. This round features just the Prototype and GT Daytona fields with the GT Le Mans contenders at the Le Mans 24 Hours test session this weekend.
It was a busy session in Prototype but in the end it was the #22 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan DPi with Pipo Derani topping the charts. The Brazillian’s record-breaking 1:22.273 lap beat out the #6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPi and Juan Pablo Montoya by roughly five tenths of a second.
“The bumpy tracks dint suit a car but we worked hard at it,” said Derani after stepping out of the car. “We’ve been working really hard and its nice to see its been paying off.”
Third in class was the #7 Acura Team Penske DPi with Helio Castroneves on qualifying duties following his Indy 500 run. The #7 Acura made contact with the #2 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan DPi on its final flying lap at Turn 11.
The session was not without drama however when the #85 JDC-Miller Racing Oreca 07 with Robert Alon at the wheel made contact with the wall on the exit of Turn 4. Alon suffered oversteer on entry before the American over-corrected the car on exit. The left front made hard contact with the wall first, followed by the rear. This brought out a red flag which would lead to further drama.
The #7 Acura, and both the #55 and #77 Mazda Team Joset cars went to the pit exit line during the red flag, which is against IMSA rules leading to a drive-through penalty for all three cars.
In addition to that there was also confusion regarding the chequered flag in the session and wether or not the session had ended. The normally scheduled time ended but the checkered flag was not shown on the stand, and moments after that another two minutes and forty seconds was added to the clock before being removed roughly thirty seconds later. This lead to a few teams sneaking in faster laps after the first clock had expired.
In GTD it was a much quieter return to the series for the GT3-spec class for their fourth race after skipping the Long Beach round earlier in the year. The championship-leading #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini GT3 with Huracan GT3 with Bryan Sellers set the quickest lap of the session with a 1:28.942, the only car go to below the 1:29 mark.
“We made a change at the end of the second session and it really brought the car to life…” said Sellers. “It really made the car a lot more drivable… one check mark done now the big one remains!”
From there it was the two Acura NSX GT3s entered by Meyer Shank Racing with Katherine Legge in the #86 Acura getting the best of the sister #93 Acura which ended up with a time of a 1:29.717 from Justin Marks at the end of the session to put the Acuras second and third on the grid.
The Chevrolet SportsCar Classic from the Belle Isle Street Course kicks off at 4:30 GMT with coverage on Fox Sports for those in the United States and IMSA.tv for those around the world.
Image courtesy of ESM
