The #93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb-Agajanian ARX-06 continued to lead the way at the IMSA Sanctioned Test this afternoon, as Renger van der Zande narrowly topped the second and final session of the opening day.
Van der Zande set a 1:36.142 shortly before the 90-minute mark, following a slow start to proceedings after the hour-long lunch break.
Only four cars took to the track in the opening 15 minutes, with Philipp Eng enjoying Daytona International Speedway to himself aboard the #25 BMW M Team WRT Hybrid V8 early on.
Once the Austrian had some company, the GTP runners proved incredibly close, with only 0.673 seconds covering the top 10, although no one bettered Nick Yelloly’s morning session time.
Second fastest was Julien Andlauer in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, with the Frenchman setting multiple improved laps throughout the second half of the 210 minutes of tracktime to end up only 0.001 seconds behind van der Zande.
Nico Pino again completed the top three aboard the #85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche, 0.136 seconds further back, whilst Tom Blomqvist was fourth in the #60 Acura.
Fifth went to Matt Campbell in the #7 Penske Porsche, ahead of the #31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R and #25 BMW. The pair of Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing entries and the #24 BMW completed the top ten.
It was another disastrous session for Aston Martin THOR Team, which completed just a single tour of the 3.56-mile circuit. Ross Gunn pitted the #23 Valkyrie following a slow installation lap in the opening hour, with the car not to be seen again.
“We diagnosed an electrical issue,” said Gunn immediately after the conclusion of the second session. “They’re in the process of fixing it.
“It seems to be the same issues reoccurring; I think we just need to dig a bit deeper, and then hopefully tomorrow, we’ll be able to have a full day. Not ideal, but also, it’s better to have these things happen in testing rather than on a race weekend or during a race.”
It was also tight at the top of the timesheets in LMP2, as TDS Racing’s Charles Milesi edged out CrowdStrike Racing by APR’s Malthe Jakobsen by 0.012 seconds.
Jakobsen set a 1:39.188 aboard the #04 ORECA 07–Gibson towards the end of the opening hour, a time that Milesi chipped away at in the #11 ORECA after the halfway mark of the session, until he surpassed it with a 1:39.176 with just over one hour to go.
Enzo Fittipaldi was third fastest in the #73 Pratt Miller Motorsports entry, ahead of the #43 Inter Europol Competition and #2 United Autosports USA ORECAs.
An otherwise clean session was interrupted by a pair of Red Flags late on, both for single-car incidents involving LMP2s.
First, Misha Goikhberg impacted the wall at turn five aboard the #52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen ORECA. Then, Jon Field went off at turn two in the #37 Intersport Racing entry.
Track action at Daytona continues tomorrow with three sessions totalling ten hours of running, as the GTD PRO and GTD runners join the fray for the first time at this year’s Sanctioned Test.
Images © Brandon Badraoui / IMSA / Lumen
