First practice for the Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway has concluded, where the #7 Penske Porsche 963 of Matt Campbell finished with the fastest time of the afternoon.
Conditions were perfect for the first competitive IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship session at Indy since 2014. Campbell’s best time of 1:15.184 was the fastest-ever lap around Indy in a sports car, with more pace still to be found. Second-quickest was Filipe Albuquerque in the #10 WTRAndretti Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06, just 0.022 seconds behind.
This continues an upward trend for the factory Porsche GTP team, who received a beneficial software update last week at the WEC 6 Hours of Fuji that is now running in America for the first time.
Sebastien Bourdais, no stranger to the Brickyard, was third-fastest in the gold #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, and with past Indy 8 Hour race winner Connor de Phillippi fourth in the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8, all four GTP makes were represented in the top four.
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the top-ranked #7 Porsche. Near the chequered flag, Felipe Nasr had a lock-up into turn one and nearly collected the #80 AO Racing “Roxy” Porsche 911 GT3 R. Nasr then turned around 180 degrees to rejoin instead of going through the access road, and nearly collided with the #6 Penske Porsche that had also gone off in avoidance.
There were two red flags during the 90-minute practice session: At the 40-minute mark, Alan Brynjolfsson and his #77 Wright Motorsports Porsche GT3 R came to a stop at turn four and continued on.
With just over 15 minutes left, the #94 Andretti Autosport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 caught fire as the result of a suspected engine failure. Jarett Andretti brought the car safely to a stop beyond turn seven and the fire was quickly extinguished. But it was a terrible break for the third-generation Andretti, whose Aston hasn’t raced since an accident at Lime Rock Park and was scratched from the last two races.
Mikkel Jensen went quickest in LMP2 in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca LMP2 07, just ahead of the second-best time from Ryan Dalziel in the Era Motorsports #18, and Ben Hanley in the CrowdStrike Racing by APR #04 – all covered by just 56 milliseconds. Dan Goldburg, just named earlier this week as the substitute driver for Tower Motorsports, had the quickest time among the Bronze-rated LMP2 drivers on his class debut.
In LMP3, Garett Grist went fastest in the #30 Jr III Racing Ligier JS P320, followed closely by Matt Bell in the #13 AWA Duquiene D08.
Over in the GTD classes, Jack Hawksworth led GTD Pro in his #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, with a top time of 1:23.636. That was enough to stand above the best times in GTD – led by Patrick Gallagher in the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, and Loris Spinelli in the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2.
Patrick Pilet was second-fastest in GTD Pro in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche, and Jules Gounon was third in class aboard the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
The #57 Winward Racing Mercedes of Russell Ward and the rechristened #32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes of Mikaël Grenier went third and fourth in GTD. Despite Brynjolfsson’s issue midway through the session, Trent Hindman’s best time in the #77 Wright Porsche was still good enough for fifth in class.
The second practice starts bright and early Saturday morning at 8:50 AM ET (local time).
Images © Michael Levitt / IMSA
