Renger van der Zande sets fastest time for Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing in night session
SUNENERGY1 RACING 10TH FOLLOWED BY PFAFF MOTORSPORTS IN 12TH, HEART OF RACING IN 13TH AND ALEGRA MOTORSPORTS IN 16TH
Another incredible competitive session tonight at Daytona International Speedway for all categories and especially GTD where, over a field of 19 cars, the first 17 cars are within a second. The entire GTD field separated by 1.647 seconds.
Several teams opted to use the evening session to not only have all their drivers experience night driving at Daytona but also practice pit stops as we saw multiple driver changes happening.
The session ran incident free which his always welcome to keep the momentum going. Some of the teams also maximized their track time as they accumulated anywhere 40-55 laps during the hour and forty five minutes session.
In the DPi class, fastest time went to Ranger van der Zande in the #1 Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi with a time of 1:34.146. Second was Ricky Taylor in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura DPi with 1:34.459 and third was Felip Nasr in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac with 1:34.653.
The six DPi cars ended the session within just over eight tenths of a second.
GTLM also saw a gap of just over eight tenths of a second between the 6 cars. It was a Corvette 1-2 with the #4 and Nick Tandy’s time of 1:42.586. The #3 sister car had Antonio Garcia set a 1:42.669 and Davide Rigon put the Ferrari 488 GTE of Risi Competizione in third with a Tim of 1:42.711.
Mikkel Jensen ended up first in LMP2 with a 1:36.033 in the #52 Oreca LMP2 07. He was followed by Matthieu Vaxiviere in the #8 Oreca LMP2 07 and third went out Robert Kubica in the #20 Oreca LMP2 07 with his time of 1:36.696.
Jeroen Bleekemolen (1:42.492) in the #91 Ligier JS P320, Laurent Hoerr (1:42.663) in the #6 Duqueine D08 and Wayne Boyd in the #33 Ligier JS P320 were the top three times in LMP3.
On the final lap of the session, as the checkered flag waved, Marco Mapelli dethroned Aaron Telitz who had been at the top of the timesheet for a majority of the session. Mapelli, driving the #111 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 crossed the line with a 1:45.593 beating the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC GT3 by 0.003s. Third was Earl Bamber in the #88 Porsche 911 GT3 R with 1:45.658.
Mikaël Grenier’s SunEnergy1 Racing team came in 10th place as Raffaele Marciello’s time was 1:45.989. Pfaff Motorsports came in 12th place as Matt Campbell set a time of 1:46.076. Roman De Angelis’s team The Heart of Racing ended the session in 13th place with a time of 1:46.142 set by Ross Gunn. Finally, Alegra Motorsports ended the practice session in 16th place as Daniel Morad set their fastest time of 1:46.272.
For our readers interested in comparative lap times within the teams where there are Canadian drivers involved and since this is the first session where all four drivers took part in driving, the following gives us an overview while keeping in mind we don’t have all the specifics in regards to the team’s strategy.
#75 SunEnergy1 Racing: Raffaele Marciello 1:45.989, Luca Stolz 1:46.084, Mikael Grenier 1:46.970, Kenny Habul 1:47.616
#9 Pfaff Motorsports: Matt Campbell 1:46.076, Laurens Vanthoor 1:46.147, Zach Robichon 1:46.962, Lars Kern 1:47.153
#23 The Heart of Racing: Ross Gunn 1:46.142, Roman De Angelis 1:46.568, Darren Turner 1:46.624, Ian James did not take part in the session.
#28 Alegra Motorsports: Daniel Morad 1:46.272, Maximilian Buhk 1:46.860, Michael de Quesada 1:47.217, Billy Johnson 1:47.395
GTLM #25 BMW Team RLL: Timo Glock 1:43.393, Bruno Spengler 1:43.483, Connor De Phillippi 1:43.695, Philippe Eng did not take part in session
LMP2 #82 DragonSpeed USA LLC: Christopher Mies 1:37.555, Devlin DeFrancesco 1:37.680, Fabian Schiller 1:38.002, Eric Lux 1:40.841
Practice 3 results
There will be a fourth and final 60 minutes practice session Friday morning from 11:20-12:20. Following that, it will be all about preparing for the Rolex 24 scheduled to start at 3:40pm on Saturday.
Image courtesy: Jake Galstad / IMSA
