Campbell Quickest Again In No.7 Penske Porsche 963
The #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 of Felipe Nasr and Matt Campbell continued its strong run of form in Practice 2 for the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship round at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Campbell, specifically, set the fastest time in Practice 1 – and he was fastest again in Practice 2, setting the pace with a best lap time of 1’15.493, thirty minutes into the one hour and 45 minute session.
There were only two minor incidents to note throughout Practice 2. The first red flag was shown after 18 minutes of running when the #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 EVO of Brendan Iribe lost control out of turn five and spun out into the sand runoff.
It was after the Red Flag that Campbell leapt back to the top of the leaderboards.
In the final minutes, Pipo Derani fired off a 1’15.642 aboard the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac V-Series.R to take second place. And with the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06 of Colin Braun in third, that put three makes into the top three in GTP.
The #6 Penske Porsche was fourth-fastest in the hands of Mathieu Jaminet. But the Frenchman also struck a kerb hard enough to tear part of the left-rear bodywork off. The strewn debris would bring out a second red flag after 70 minutes of running. Ricky Taylor was fifth-fastest in the #10 Konica Minolta Acura, and the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Philipp Eng was sixth-fastest, six-tenths away from Campbell’s fastest time.
After yesterday’s crash, the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R was full repaired and able to complete a full session – but Sébastien Bourdais’ time of 1’17.415 was only eighth-fastest.
JDC-Miller Motorsports also used Practice 2 as another shakedown session for the #5 Porsche 963 “Banana Boat”. Tijmen van der Helm and Mike Rockenfeller completed 49 laps as the first American Porsche 963 customer team gradually gets up to speed.
In LMP2, Ed Jones reeled off a 1’17.763 aboard the #20 High Class Racing Oreca 07, the fastest time of the weekend so far and half a second clear of the second-best time from Ryan Dalziel in the #18 Era Motorsport Oreca. Juan Pablo Montoya was third-fastest in the DragonSpeed-run #51 Rick Ware Racing Oreca.
Of note ahead of Qualifying later today, the fastest Bronze-rated driver in LMP2 was Ben Keating aboard the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca.
A great surprise emerged from the running order in GTD, where Forte Racing Powered by USRT’s first-year effort led the way in Practice.
The rapid Italian Loris Spinelli put the black and green #78 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 at the top of the boards in GTD, with a time of 1’24.124. It’s a great result for Lamborghini’s sole full-season entry in IMSA’s main series.
Meanwhile the leading GTD Pro entry, the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Alex Riberas, wasn’t far off. Riberas set a string of fast laps in the final ten minutes of Practice 2. His best time of 1’24.285 was within two-tenths of Spinelli’s benchmark across both the GTD classes.
In GTD, the #12 VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Frankie Montecalvo was second-fastest, followed closely by the #92 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R of Julien Andlauer – who’s back in the car this weekend for the first time since Sebring.
Klaus Bachler was second-fastest in GTD Pro for defending class winners Pfaff Motorsports and their #9 Porsche, while Daniel Juncadella went third-fastest in class for the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Qualifying for the Motul Course de Monterey begins this afternoon at 12:55 PM PDT (local time) / 3:55 PM EDT.
Images courtesy of IMSA
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