Helio Castroneves put the #7 Acura-Penske DPi on top of the pile during the second practice session for this weekend's IMSA Daytona 24 Hours.
The three-time Indianapolis 500 winner turned in a time of 1:37.036s that eclipsed the next-best effort – set by Nicolas Lapierre in the #22 ESM-Nissan DPi – by three tenths of a second.
The result marked Acura's first time leading an official IMSA practice session.
Third fastest was Filipe Albuquerque in the best of the Cadillac DPis (+0.349s) while Colin Braun's run to fourth place in the CORE Autosport ORECA marked the highest-placed LMP2 effort (+0.426s).
Rounding out the top five was Mazda factory driver Jonathan Bomarito, who ended Thursday afternoon half a second down on Castroneves' benchmark.
McLaren F1 driver Fernando Alonso completed his first laps of the Daytona 24 weekend, after the United Autosports Ligier he is due to race underwent repairs following a crash in opening practice.
Alonso set the 24th fastest time overall, but a faster effort from team-mate Lando Norris moved the UA squad up to 12th in the teams' table.
In GT Le Mans, Porsche and Corvette superseded Ford after the Ganassi-run squad led the opening session by half a second.
Patrick Pilet was the fastest person in class during FP2, setting a time of 1:43.902s behind the wheel of the CORE-run 911 RSR that edged out the Corvette of defending series champion Jan Magnussen by seven hundredths.
Ford settled for the third and fourth fastest times, with Richard Westbrook (#67) slotting ahead of Dirk Mueller (#66).
Quickest in GT Daytona was Alvaro Parente, driving one of the two Acura NSX-GT3 cars entered by Michael Shank Racing.
The reigning Pirelli World Series champion clocked in a time of 1:46.790s, beating the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 of Scuderia factory driver Miguel Molina by two tenths of a second.
Third in the secondary GT class was Le Mans GTE-Pro winner Daniel Serra, who was at the controls of the #51 Ferrari entered by Spirit of Race.
Qualifying for the IMSA Sportscar Championship season opener is set to take place at 15:55 local time (20:55 UK).






Discussion about this post