After Acura Meyer Shank Racing topped the opening session of the 2025 Roar Before The 24 earlier today, it was BMW Team RLL that led the way this afternoon.
Dries Vanthoor set the best time in the #24 M Hybrid V8, a 1:35.424, which was half a second quicker than Tom Blomqvist’s benchmark hot lap for Acura MSR in Session 1.
“It’s good to know that it’s looking good at this early stage. We believe we have taken steps since last year,” Vanthoor said. “We’ve done a lot of testing and there’s a lot of hard work going in, we will see next week if pays off.
“The first session, the track was quite dirty, grip wasn’t the highest. We will really feel the grip building up closer to the race next week.”
Acura MSR’s #93 ARX-06 wasn’t far off though on this occasion, with a 1:35.619 from former RLL driver Nick Yelolly putting the team within two-tenths.
After completing just five laps in Session 1 due to a “minor IT issue”, the second bout of track time proved far more productive for Lamborghini’s SC63. The car ended up completing 46 tours of the circuit and slotting in third with a 1:36.041 from Romain Grosjean.
The #25 RLL BMW took fourth, with the #60 Acura MSR ARX-06 fifth.
Elsewhere in the top class, it was a tough outing for the #7 Porsche Penske 963. Felipe Nasr pulled off the circuit on the run to the Bus Stop after the car’s high-voltage alarm went off.
As per regulation, Nasr jumped out and the car was recovered to the Isolation Zone before being returned to the team. It didn’t return to the session.
In LMP2 it was TDS Racing’s ORECA that led the way, with a 1:39.047 from Peugeot Hypercar driver Mikkel Jensen. It was tight at the top as the #43 Inter Europol Competition 07 ended up second with a lap 0.083 off. It wasn’t all plain sailing though for the Polish team, as it caused a red flag late on after stopping on track with Bijoy Garg at the wheel.
The #04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR that topped Session 1 finished the day third. However, the team’s 1:38.673 from the opening session was the fastest P2 time of the day.
In GTD the top two spots were occupied by Pro cars, with the Laurin Heinrich in the #77 AO Racing Porsche setting a 1:47.775 to go fastest. The Pfaff Lamborghini claimed second, while the #32 Korthoff Competition Mercedes set the pace in GTD with the third-fastest time (1:48.237) in the combined rankings.
Testing continues tomorrow for the WeatherTech teams with Session 3 at 11:15 am.
Images courtesy of Andrew Lofthouse
