Scott Dixon led the way in the morning, and now it was Alex Palou’s turn to put the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R on top during Practice 2 for the 62nd annual Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona.
Renger van der Zande put the Ganassi-run gold Cadillac on top after just 15 minutes on the track. Then, towards the end of today’s one-hour, 45-minute session, the Spanish two-time IndyCar Series champion went quicker still.
Palou’s time of 1:35.589 was nearly seven-tenths quicker than the Practice 1 benchmark set by his six-time IndyCar Champion team-mate.
“It’s been a good day so far for us,” he said after the session. “We were fastest this morning with Scott and now with Renger and I. It’s very different each time we go out with the conditions and traffic.
“It helps to have done the race before and that they give me a lot of track time. They gave me full sessions last week, which the fourth driver doesn’t normally get. We’re not going to have clean laps in the race, so it’s all about learning how to manage the traffic and driver changes.
“We don’t really know what the other manufacturers are doing. But the car feels really good. We’ve made a lot of progress since last week.”
Porsche 963s ran second and third, with the #7 Penske Porsche ahead of the #5 Proton Competition Porsche. There wasn’t much to separate the top times of Felipe Nasr and Gianmaria Bruni – just 30 milliseconds between Nasr’s 1:35.724 and Bruni’s 1:35.754.
Jack Aitken was fourth-fastest in the pole-sitting #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac with a 1:35.788.
Behind them, the fastest BMW M Hybrid V8 was the #25 BMW M Team RLL car, Nick Yelloly setting a 1:35.967 to go sixth-fastest.
Best of the two WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06es was the black and blue #10, whose best lap was a 1:36.404 set by Ricky Taylor.
LMP2 and GTD cars had the first 15 minutes of this afternoon session to themselves. At that interval, James Allen was quickest in LMP2 aboard the #81 DragonSpeed ORECA 07 with a 1:39.497.
But ten minutes later, Formula Two alum and Screaming Meals co-host Clement Novalak went quicker, setting a 1:39.416 to top the session in the #52 Inter Europol with PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA.
Novalak came just nine milliseconds away from taking the best LMP2 time of the day from Toby Sowery, the Practice 1 leader.
A 1:39.818 put Malthe Jakobsen third in the #04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA, with Scott McLaughlin in fourth with a 1:39.952 aboard the #8 Tower Motorsports ORECA.
Nolan Siegel’s best lap of 1:40.343 put the #33 Sean Creech Motorsports Ligier JS P217 within a second of the top, but down in 11th.
The only on-track incident of note came out of Speedway Turn Two when Laurents Hörr bumped Steven Thomas just enough to get a diveplane off the #20 MDK by High Class Racing ORECA lodged in the diffuser of the #11 TDS Racing ORECA.
For the second time, GTD’s top time was faster than the top time in GTD Pro.
Klaus Bachler looked strong aboard the #86 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, setting a 1:47.045 to lead what was a very close top-four in the GTD class.
Katherine Legge’s time from Practice 1 stood as the fastest of the day.
Dennis Olsen set a 1:47.085 in the #55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3, the #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Albert Costa set a 1:47.106, and the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Jens Klingmann set a 1:47.151, all separated by just over a tenth of a second.
With the #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO of Nicki Thiim and the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Scott Andrews fifth and sixth, that made it six manufacturers in the top six.
GTD Pro was led by the #9 Pfaff Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3 EVO. Alexander Rossi went quickest with a best lap of 1:47.144.
Pfaff’s only drama came when the car stopped coming into the West Horseshoe after Oliver Jarvis got in the car, but he was quickly able to get going again.
One GTD Pro car that wasn’t able to get going in the afternoon was the #3 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. The car had limited time in Practice 1 and set no laps in Practice 2.
Like GTD, four different manufacturers sat in the top four of GTD Pro.
Daniel Serra was second in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari with a 1:47.308. Laurin Heinrich was third-fastest with a 1:47.315 aboard the #77 AO Racing Porsche, and Mirko Bortolotti was fourth with a 1:47.322 – there was only 14 milliseconds between those three!
A 90-minute Night Practice session concludes on-track activities today; that session begins at 6:35 PM EST (local time).
Images © Jack Webster / Dailysportscar
