JDC-Miller Motorsports driver Stephen Simpson set the fastest lap during opening practice for the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen, as five different manufacturers occupied the top five places.
Simpson turned in a time of 1:35.491s behind the wheel of the yellow Gibson-powered ORECA in preparation for the third endurance contest of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship season.
That put the South African driver – who shares the car with Chris Miller and Misha Goikhberg – 0.039 seconds up on Ryan Dalziel in the ESM-run Nissan DPi.
RESULT: 6 Hours of Watkins Glen FP1
Third in a dry, incident-free FP1 was Jaoa Barbosa in the No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi (+1.322s), whilst Jonathan Bomarito's Mazda and the Ligier JSP217 of Olivier Pla completed an eclectic top five.
The championship-leading and so-far-undefeated Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi ended up with the sixth-best time, 1.7 seconds off the pace.
In GTLM, Ford led the way with Dirk Müller clocking a time of 1:43.078s that was enough to esge out the second-placed BMW M6 of Bill Auberlen by half a second.
Tommy Milner lapped third fastest in the best of the two Corvette C7.Rs, while John Edwards ended up fourth in the other BMW.
Rounding out the top five in class was Jan Magnussen, driving the championship-leading Corvette.
Patricio O'Ward led the Prototype Challenge category for Performance Tech Motorsports, while Andy Lally paced a competitive GT Daytona field in the Detroit-winning Acura NSX GT3.
FP2 for the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen is set to take place at 15:30 local time (EDT).
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