What a difference a session makes. Immediately following the WEC session, the TUDOR took to the track for their second and final session of the day. Immediately it was evident that conditions had improved and that the teams were coming to grips (sorry) with the conditions.
This was most evident in the Prototypes. In the early session, none of the competitors were able to break the 2:00 barrier. In the second session, early on that barrier was broken and broken in a big way. By the end of the hour session, 4 teams were able to break into the 1:50s, led by Joey Hand in the Ganassi Ford. Hand was able to achieve a 1:57.639, which compares reasonably with the times set in the WEC session earlier. (In that session, the leading LMP2 car was the KCMG Oreca Nissan, which managed a 1:56.545.)
Second fastest was the racy looking MSR Ligier, improving to a 1:58.388. Surprisingly this time was almost identical to what the ESM team was able to achieve in the WEC session with similar Ligier/HPD cars. One difference is the tires, MSR is on the spec Continental tires, while ESM runs on open spec Dunlops.
The fastest of the Corvettes was WTR, with Jordan Taylor settling for a time 1.4 seconds off the leading pace.
As in the earlier session, it was the same three cars topping the PC times, but this time it was CORE over Starworks by .44 seconds with again RSR 3rd fastest. The rest of the class was at the best nearly a second off the pace.
The Starworks effort stymied by an off by Mike Hedlund about half way thru the session which caused a short red flag condition. The other red in the session was also caused by a PC car, in this case it was the BAR1 with Todd Slusher driving.
In GTLM, the fastest in the session was not a Porsche. Dirk Werner brought the 25 BMW Z4 fastest, actually quite early in the session – on his 5th lap to be exact. His time was not bettered throughout the rest of the session. This session was much more balanced make wise, as the top 3 were BMW, Porsche, Corvette.
Unfortunately the gap was still wide, the No. 4 Corvette trailed the 25 BMW 1.9 seconds. This Corvette has been struggling with rear grip issues all day. They did improve in this session though by nearly a second. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the cars improved even more.
Magnus Porsche was the only of the GTD class cars to break thru the 2:10 limit as Andy Lally was able turn a 2:09.914 very early in the session that held throughout. He was followed by the Markus Palttala driven BMW, .2 seconds back. Bleekemolen again set the fast time for the Viper, setting the 3rd quickest time. The session was favorable for the defending class race winners, as Vipers placed 3rd and 5th in the session.
Surprisingly at the bottom was the TRG Aston Martin of points leader Christina Nielsen, which was way off the pace, ending with a best lap in the 2:13s.
The TUDOR class will have one final practice session tomorrow morning in order to pull together their qualifying strategies, which will take place in the late heat of the day.
