The #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R went quickest in Practice 1 to start the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend.
The first 60 minutes of on-track action were interrupted by a couple of incidents for GTD cars, as all 27 teams had to navigate a very green track surface as is the case at every IMSA street race.
Brendan Iribe was the first to find trouble, 25 minutes into Practice. He lost control of his #70 Inception Racing McLaren GT3 EVO turn one and nosed into the tyre barriers, bringing out a red flag when he couldn’t reverse out immediately.
Less than ten minutes after the session resumed, Mikaël Grenier went in too fast into turn ten and hit the concrete barriers, doing significant damage to the left side of the #32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3. This brought out the second red flag, and a much longer one for cleanup, until Practice resumed with 12 minutes left.
Pipo Derani leapt to the top of the timesheets with four minutes remaining, as he set a 1:13.477 in the #31 Cadillac to take the top spot in GTP – knocking Sébastien Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R off the top.
It ended up being very close at the top, as Connor de Phillippi went second-fastest at the flag with a 1:13.503 in the #25 RLL BMW M Hybrid V8, just 0.026s slower than Derani’s best time – and just 0.028s quicker than Bourdais’ 1:13.531, which ended up being good enough for third.
Defending Long Beach winner Nick Tandy was fourth-quickest in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, with Philipp Eng just behind him in the #24 RLL BMW. GTP Championship leader Felipe Nasr was sixth-fastest in the #7 Penske Porsche.
Both Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06es had separate incidents in turn six – both cars had to take the escape road but drove away without any lasting damage. But the two WTRAndretti cars ended the session in the bottom two. Filipe Albuquerque’s best time in the #10 WTRAndretti Acura was 1.7 seconds off Derani’s leading lap.
Over in GTD, the one remaining AWA Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R led the session, yet it wasn’t immune from trouble.
Matt Bell drove the gold and black #13 AWA Corvette to the top spot with just six minutes left in the session, with a time of 1:18.911. Then just two laps later, he missed the apex at turn five and crashed – though he was able to drive back to the pits in the final seconds, and didn’t bring out a red flag.
The #89 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Parker Thompson was second-fastest with a 1:19.055, with Kyle Marcelli putting in a late flyer to go third in the #45 WTRAndretti Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2.
Jack Hawksworth was fourth in the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus, while Frederik Schandorff’s best time in the #70 Inception Racing McLaren stood for fifth place.
Expect all cars to gain more time as the weekend progresses, with Practice 2 starting at 12:50 PM PDT (local time).
Feature image © Michael L. Levitt / IMSA
