Finding the repaved 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International to their liking in Friday’s opening practice, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors unofficially bettered all four class records in preparation for Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
Olivier Pla posted the fastest time of the day, running 1:36.155 (127.2 mph) in the #60 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Curb Records/AERO Ligier Honda JS P2. Co-driver Ozz Negri led the opening session with a lap of 1:36.705 (126.5 mph). Both laps bettered the WeatherTech Championship record of 1:37.902 (125.023 mph), set in 2014 in a Morgan Nissan.
“As soon as I did the track walk with John and Ozz yesterday, I knew I was going to love the track,” Pla said. “It’s a really fast track, and I love tracks with fast corners. You can really feel the G forces in your neck. It makes it fun to drive. We’ll just keep pushing hard. The race will be very tough so we’ll have to be good on strategy and stay out of trouble and if we do that, I think we’ll be good.”
The only other cars to set a sub 1:37 time across the first two sessions were also P2 spec machines, the #55 Mazda, and the #2 Tequila Patron ESM cars edging into the 1:36s in session 2.
Joey Hand, recent GTE Pro class winner in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, was fastest in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class with a lap of 1:43.309 (118.4 mph) in the #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT co-driven by Dirk Mueller. Second was teammate Richard Westbrook, 1:43.377 (118.4 mph) in the #67 Ford GT co-driven by Ryan Briscoe. Westy is on a potential three win streak here, he was the overall winner here in both 2014 and 2015, driving the #90 Visit Florida Racing Corvette DP.
“This has always been a good track for me,” said Westbrook. “It has a nice rhythm, nice flow, and a lot of history. Also the six-hour format makes for great endurance racing. Everyone on the team has had a little more spring in their step after Laguna (Westbrook and co-driver Ryan Briscoe gave the new Ford GT its first victory at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in May). The points table was not very good looking after Long Beach. After that victory, we were confident going over to Le Mans, where we had two podium finishes, and now we’re looking forward to the remainder of the season.”
Third fastest across the two sessions was the #100 BMW Team RLL M6 GTLM a 1:43.5
Defending Sahlen’s Six Hour Prototype Challenge (PC) winner Renger van de Zande led his class with a lap of 1:38.582 (124.1 mph) in the #8 Starworks Motorsport ORECA FLM09 co-driven by Alex Popow. Colin Braun was second in the #54 CORE autosport Flex Box/Composite Resources ORECA co-driven by Jon Bennett and Mark Wilkins, 1:38.619 (124.1 mph).
Stevenson Motorsports Audis ran 1-2 in GT Daytona (GTD). Robin Liddell clocked the best lap of the day in the opening session, 1:46.147 (115.3 mph) in the #6 Stevenson Auto Group Audi R8 LMS GT3 co-driven by Andrew Davis. Lawson Aschenbach led the afternoon session in the team’s #9 entry co-driven by Matt Bell, running 1:46.259 (115.1 mph).
Third fastest across the sessions was the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3, with identical times in both sessions 1;46.340.
The second Practice session was red flagged after a huge accident for Larry DeGeorge in the #27 Dream Racing Lamborghini. The driver was mercifully OK despite a violent and briefly fiery shunt. The team meanwhile look set to field their spare car for qualifying and the race.
