Practice 1 Kicks Off From Laguna Seca – Porsche Fastest, Woes For Cadillac

IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship action kicked off Friday afternoon from WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Fifteen minutes into Practice 1, the new #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 (Tijmen van der Helm/Mike Rockenfeller) took to the track for the first time, using the 90-minute session as a shakedown test with Rockenfeller completing 17 laps.

Shortly afterwards, however, Sébastien Bourdais hit too much of the kerbs at turn six, spun off, and crashed into the tyre barriers to bring out a red flag. Bourdais was uninjured, but the gold #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R was done for the session with right-front damages.

This is the latest in a painful run for Bourdais and Renger van der Zande – Bourdais crashed out in the first lap at Long Beach, and Van der Zande had his spectacular wreck in the WEC 6 Hours of Spa.

Colin Braun was quickest to this point aboard the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06. With 20 minutes left, Mikkel Jensen came to a stop in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca LMP2 07 to bring out a second red flag. That red flag lifted with less than 15 minutes to go.

That gave Matt Campbell enough time to put the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 on top of the timesheets with a 1’16.956, then a 1’16.807, and on his last lap of the session, a 1’16.703. It’s a good start to the weekend for Porsche, coming off its first win in IMSA GTP competition last time out at Long Beach.

Braun’s lap time of 1’17.019 was good enough for second, followed by the #6 Penske Porsche of Long Beach winner Mathieu Jaminet in third, and the #10 Konica Minolta Acura of Ricky Taylor in fourth.

Best of the Cadillacs was Pipo Derani in the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac in fifth, followed by the best of the BMWs, the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Connor de Philippi in sixth.

Reigning LMP2 champions Tower Motorsports finished with the fastest time in its class, a 1’17.897 from Louis Deletraz – who returns to the team this weekend alongside gentleman driver John Farano, a successful combination from 2022.

Deletraz was the only LMP2 driver to dip into the sub-one minute, 18 second range ahead of the #04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR Oreca of Ben Hanley, and the #18 Era Motorsport Oreca of Ryan Dalziel.

Of the Bronze-rated drivers, Eric Lux was fastest in the #51 Rick Ware Racing Oreca, which is now under new management – DragonSpeed team director Elton Julian and a significant chunk of the team’s staff now taking over from the previous support staff at Eurasia Motorsport.

It was a good session for the two VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3s, which led their respective GTD classes.

Outright fastest was the GTD class #12 Lexus of Frankie Montecalvo who set a 1’24.796 in the final minutes of the session. Less than a tenth of a second off, Seb Priaulx was second-quickest aboard the #80 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, which has team manager Gunnar Jeannette filling in this week for an injured PJ Hyett.

A last-lap flyer from Russell Ward put the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 third in GTD, ahead of Katherine Legge in the #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3, and Bill Auberlen in the #97 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3.

In GTD Pro, Ben Barnicoat was fastest aboard the #14 Lexus with a time of 1’25.020. Ross Gunn was second aboard the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3, despite getting tangled in some poor driving from the #35 TDS Racing Oreca of François Heriau early on in the session.

Jules Gounon went third-quickest in the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes, while gearbox issues limited the #3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD to just eight laps.

Another GTD car making its debut was the #94 Andretti Autosport Aston Martin (Jarett Andretti/Gabby Chaves) which finished 12th in the GTD class.

PRACTICE 1 RESULTS >>

Practice 2 for the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship kicks off bright and early Saturday at 8:55 AM PDT (local time)!

Images courtesy of IMSA