Acura Meyer Shank Racing led the third and fourth sessions of the IMSA-sanctioned test at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday. It was the only day to feature all four IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes on track as the GTP and LMP2 categories began to wrap up their two days of testing.
There were no major incidents across the two daytime sessions to report thus far – just a few instances of pit-lane speeding and a trio of harmless off-track moments.
New Acura recruit Nick Yelloly set the best time in the morning session (Session 3) aboard the #93 Acura ARX-06, with a 1:35.708. He was three-tenths of a second quicker than the #25 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 of Marco Wittmann in second place, followed by the #24 RLL BMW of Robin Frijns in third.
In the afternoon (Session 4), Colin Braun was fastest in the #60 MSR Acura, followed by Romain Grosjean aboard the #63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63, in second place – with reigning FIA World Endurance Hypercar Champion Kevin Estre third in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963. All three drivers’ best times were separated by just 84 milliseconds.
Yelloly’s time in Session 3 is still the quickest of the test so far.
The #6 Penske Porsche has continued to rack up the kilometres, turning 270 laps across both daytime sessions with a two-hour night test still to come as of publication.
And the V12-powered #23 Aston Martin Team THOR Valkyrie AMR-LMH has continued to find pace throughout the day. So far the Valkyrie has turned 140 laps with a best lap of 1:37.169 set by Ross Gunn in Session 4.
The #04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA 07 led both sessions in LMP2. Malthe Jakobsen set the fastest time in class both times – with a 1:38.985 in Session 3 and a 1:38.902.
Ben Hanley was second-fastest in LMP2 both times in the #2 United Autosports USA ORECA, while the #74 Riley ORECA led LMP2 on the lap counter with 175 today – making up for the time lost after Felipe Fraga’s incident in the first test session yesterday morning.
GTD Pro and GTD ran in testing for the first time today, the first time for a few GTD cars to hit the track in an official IMSA-sanctioned session.
They included the #36 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, and the #83 Iron Dames Porsche 911 GT3 R, sporting a bare carbon livery. The Iron Dames Porsche actually led all GT3 cars in mileage today with 169 laps, four more than the DXDT Corvette.
The #19 Van der Steur Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 didn’t appear in Session 3 but did run 80 laps in Session 4.
In GTD Pro, Ford Multimatic Motorsports’ Mustang GT3s led the way. Dennis Olsen led both sessions in the #65 Mustang with a best lap of 1:48.177 in Session 4, followed both times by the #64 Mustang – whose best lap was set by Seb Priaulx, just 0.021 seconds behind Olsen in the afternoon.
From GTD, the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche led both sessions in the hands of Elliott Skeer. In fact, Skeer’s best time of 1:48.438 from Session 3 was the quickest lap that wasn’t set by a Ford Mustang GT3 driver.
In class, Davide Rigon was four-tenths back in the #70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3.
We’ll have an update after the conclusion of Session 5 tonight – which runs from 7:00-9:00 PM EST (local time).
COMBINED TEST RESULTS >> (Sessions 1-4)
Images © Michael L. Levitt, Brandon Badraoui / IMSA
