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David Malsher-Lopez

Petit Le Mans IMSA: Bourdais leads FP2 in Ganassi Cadillac

For much of the session, the top five Prototypes were covered by just 0.11sec, with Renger van der Zande in the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac setting a 70.264sec, leading the stablemate #02 car’s endurance extra Ryan Hunter-Reay by 0.061sec. Loic Duval in the JDC Miller Motorsports entry made it a Caddy 1-2-3, mere hundredths behind, the team having fixed its faulty brake-bias lever which had caused the car to have an off in FP1.

At this point, Helio Castroneves of Meyer Shank Racing was fourth fastest in the quickest of the Acura ARX-05s ahead of Mike Conway in the Action Express Racing Cadillac.

Then with 37mins of the session remaining, the LMP2 championship-leading Tower Motorsports entry of Rui Pinto de Andrade plowed off the track at Turn 1, and hit the tire wall, while lying second in class behind Ryan Dalziel in the Era Motorsports machine. Thankfully the damage wasn’t hard enough to prevent Andrade to head back to the pits under his own power.

With 20mins to go, Bamber shaved a couple of hundredths off Hunter-Reay’s time to edge slightly closer to van der Zande’s benchmark, before getting pushed back to the paddock for a checkover after slight contact with a GT car. Tom Blomqvist also moved the MSR Acura up into third.

Then, with 15mins remaining, championship leader Ricky Taylor delivered the first lap of the session under the 70sec barrier with a 69.858sec for Wayne Taylor Racing. With seven minutes remaining, Blomqvist put this into perspective, working down to a 69.342sec, a quarter second ahead of the impressive Tristan Vautier of JDC Miller and a further tenth up on Sebastien Bourdais in the #01 Ganassi Caddy.

Once Blomqvist pitted, Kamui Kobayashi in the ‘extra’ Action Express Cadillac and Vautier both trimmed their deficit to the MSR Acura to under one-tenth. But Bourdais wasn’t done yet, taking a full three tenths out of Blomqvist to end the session on top with a 69.040.

Dalziel’s 1min11.656sec flyer remained the top of the LMP2 times, three-tenths ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya in the DragonSpeed machine and Anders Fjordbach of High Class Racing.

The PR1/Mathiasen LMP2 car that Scott Huffaker crashed this morning gained no laps until the last five minutes of the LMP2 class’s track time, with Mikkel Jensen at least able to shake down the car.

Kay van Berlo put Riley Motorsports on top in LMP3 ahead of Gabby Chaves of Andretti Autosport and Nolan Siegel in the Garett Grist of the Jr III team.

GTD Pro was led by Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F of Jack Hawksworth, a shocking 0.645se faster than Jesse Krohn in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan-run BMW M4, while Antonio Garcia’s final flyer sent the Corvette C8.R into third, a further 0.15sec adrift.

Vasser Sullivan Lexus also topped GTD, Richard Heistand delivering an excellent 79.853sec to beat Erik Johanasson in the Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 by just 0.006sec!

Third in class was Russell Ward’s Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 ahead of the similar car of Stevan McAleer in the Team Korthoff machine. Then came the Cetilar Racing Ferrari 488 of Ulysse de Pauw ahead of Simon Mann’s AF Corse Ferrari.

Magnus Racing’s GTD Aston Martin required an engine change and missed the session.

The third, 90-minute practice session will commence at 7.30pm local (Eastern) time.

Petit Le Mans - FP2 results:

Cla Num Driver Class Chassis Time Gap
1 01 Netherlands Renger van der Zande
France Sébastien Bourdais
New Zealand Scott Dixon
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'09.040  
2 60 United Kingdom Oliver Jarvis
United Kingdom Tom Blomqvist
Brazil Helio Castroneves
DPi Acura DPi 1'09.342 0.302
3 48 Germany Mike Rockenfeller
Japan Kamui Kobayashi
United States Jimmie Johnson
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'09.425 0.385
4 5 France Tristan Vautier
United Kingdom Richard Westbrook
France Loic Duval
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'09.438 0.398
5 31 France Olivier Pla
Brazil Pipo Derani
United Kingdom Mike Conway
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'09.772 0.732
6 10 United States Ricky Taylor
Portugal Filipe Albuquerque
New Zealand Brendon Hartley
DPi Acura DPi 1'09.858 0.818
7 02 New Zealand Earl Bamber
United Kingdom Alex Lynn
United States Ryan Hunter-Reay
DPi Cadillac DPi 1'10.307 1.267
8 18 United States Dwight Merriman
United Kingdom Ryan Dalziel
Christian Rasmussen
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'11.656 2.616
9 81 Sweden Henrik Hedman
Colombia Juan Pablo Montoya
Colombia Sebastian Montoya
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'11.987 2.947
10 20 Denmark Dennis Andersen
Denmark Anders Fjordbach
Switzerland Fabio Scherer
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'11.991 2.951
11 8 Canada John Farano
Switzerland Louis Deletraz
Portugal Rui Andrade
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'12.132 3.092
12 11 United States Steven Thomas
United States Josh Pierson
United States Tristan Nunez
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'12.254 3.214
13 52 United States Ben Keating
Denmark Mikkel Jensen
United States Scott Huffaker
LMP2 ORECA LMP2 07 1'14.894 5.854
14 74 United States Gar Robinson
Brazil Felipe Fraga
Netherlands Kay van Berlo
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'15.569 6.529
15 36 United States Jarett Andretti
Colombia Gabby Chaves
Josh Burdon
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'15.798 6.758
16 30 United States Ari Balogh
Canada Garett Grist
Nolan Siegel
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'16.260 7.220
17 13 Canada Orey Fidani
United Kingdom Matthew Bell
Germany Lars Kern
LMP3 Duqueine D08 1'16.321 7.281
18 33 Portugal Joao Barbosa
Malthe Jakobsen
Nicolas Pino
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'16.560 7.520
19 38 Daniel Goldburg
Australia Cameron Shields
Tyler Maxson
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'17.445 8.405
20 76 Canada Anthony Mantella
Canada Kyle Marcelli
Josh Sarchet
LMP3 Duqueine D08 1'17.793 8.753
21 54 United States Jon Bennett
United States Colin Braun
United States George Kurtz
LMP3 Ligier JS P320 1'18.107 9.067
22 14 United Kingdom Jack Hawksworth
United Kingdom Ben Barnicoat
United States Kyle Kirkwood
GTD PRO Lexus RC F GT3 1'18.912 9.872
23 25 United States Connor de Phillippi
United States John Edwards
Finland Jesse Krohn
GTD PRO BMW M4 GT3 1'19.557 10.517
24 3 Spain Antonio Garcia
United States Jordan Taylor
Netherlands Nick Catsburg
GTD PRO Corvette C8.R GTD 1'19.718 10.678
25 12 United States Frankie Montecalvo
United States Aaron Telitz
United States Richard Heistand
GTD Lexus RC F GT3 1'19.853 10.813
26 1 United States Bryan Sellers
United States Madison Snow
Sweden Erik Johansson
GTD BMW M4 GT3 1'19.859 10.819
27 62 Brazil Daniel Serra
Italy Davide Rigon
United Kingdom James Calado
GTD PRO Ferrari 488 GT3 1'20.038 10.998
28 23 United Kingdom Ross Gunn
Spain Alex Riberas
United Kingdom Tom Gamble
GTD PRO Aston Martin Vantage GT3 1'20.078 11.038
29 9 Australia Matt Campbell
France Mathieu Jaminet
Brazil Felipe Nasr
GTD PRO Porsche 911 GT3 R 1'20.175 11.135
30 57 United States Russell Ward
Switzerland Philip Ellis
Germany Marvin Dienst
GTD Mercedes AMG GT3 1'20.189 11.149
31 32 United States Mike Skeen
United Kingdom Stevan McAleer
Germany Dirk Muller
GTD Mercedes AMG GT3 1'20.204 11.164
32 47 Italy Roberto Lacorte
Italy Giorgio Sernagiotto
Ulysse De
GTD Ferrari 488 GT3 1'20.269 11.229
33 21 France Simon Mann
Argentina Luis Perez Companc
Finland Toni Vilander
GTD Ferrari 488 GT3 1'20.292 11.252
34 96 United States Robby Foley
United States Bill Auberlen
Michael Dinan
GTD BMW M4 GT3 1'20.299 11.259
35 16 United States Ryan Hardwick
Canada Zacharie Robichon
Belgium Jan Heylen
GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R 1'20.311 11.271
36 79 Germany Maximilian Buhk
Canada Mikael Grenier
Maximillian Goetz
GTD PRO Mercedes AMG GT3 1'20.439 11.399
37 70 United States Brendan Iribe
South Africa Jordan Lee Pepper
United Kingdom Sebastian Priaulx
GTD McLaren 720S GT3 1'20.659 11.619
38 27 Canada Roman De Angelis
Belgium Maxime Martin
United Kingdom Ian James
GTD Aston Martin Vantage GT3 1'20.672 11.632
39 39 United States Robert Megennis
United States Corey Lewis
United States Jeff Westphal
GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3 1'20.675 11.635
40 42 United States Jaden Conwright
Marco Holzer
United States Don Yount
GTD Lamborghini Huracan GT3 1'20.723 11.683
41 66 Kyffin Simpson
United States Till Bechtolsheimer
Germany Mario Farnbacher
GTD Acura NSX GT3 1'20.785 11.745
42 99 United States Rob Ferriol
United Kingdom Katherine Legge
United States Nicholas Boulle
GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R 1'21.727 12.687
43 44 United States John Potter
United States Andy Lally
United States Spencer Pumpelly
GTD Aston Martin Vantage GT3    
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