BMW’s Dries Vanthoor set the fastest time in the second session of the Roar before the 24, in preparation for next weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours, held at Daytona International Speedway in Florida.
The Belgian was the fastest driver overall, onboard the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8, run by Team RLL. He set a 1:35.424 to go quickest, 0.195 faster than former BMW factory driver Nick Yelloly, who started his Acura career well by taking second in the #93 Meyer Shank Acura ARX-06.
Third fastest was Lamborghini’s Romain Grosjean, in the #63 Lamborghini SC63. The Frenchman was 0.617 slower than D. Vanthoor, but managed to take third in an encouraging showing for the Italian manufacturer.
Third quickest was the sister BMW, this time with Sheldon van der Linde at the wheel of the sister #25 car, 0.669 slower than his teammate. And fifth was Colin Braun in the other Acura, the #60 machine, almost a second off D. Vanthoor’s pace.
The three Cadillacs were sixth, seventh, and eighth, with the fastest Porsche of Kevin Estre ninth and the customer #85 JDC Miller Porsche tenth, with Tijman van der Helm at the wheel.
Nasr and Garg cause session stoppages
There were two red flags in the session, one caused by Felipe Nasr’s Porsche 963, which stopped on track on its second lap on the backstretch, heading towards the bus stop. The car had a high voltage issue, and the Brazilian had to jump out of the car as per IMSA’s safety regulations on high voltage recovery.
The other red flag came with less than 20 minutes left on the clock. It was caused by Bijoy Garg in the #43 Inter Europol Competition LMP2 car. He went off at turn 6 and had to be recovered. He’d previously gone off but had recovered back on track.
Speaking of LMP2, Mikkel Jensen was the quickest in the class onboard the #11 TDS Racing Oreca 07-Gibson. He set a 1:39.047 to go quickest, 0.083 faster than Antonio Felix da Costa in the #43 Inter Europol Oreca, the car which Garg later crashed. Third fastest in LMP2 was Indycar star Colton Herta in the #04 Crowdstrike APR Oreca, just under three tenths off Jensen.
Porsche and Mercedes on top in GT classes
In GTD Pro, Laurin Heinrich set the pace in the #77 AO Racing ‘Rexy’ Porsche 911 GT3R, with a 1:47.775. This was just 0.023 faster than Marco Mapelli in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, with Albert Costa third in the #81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3, 0.465 off Heinrich’s time.
And finally, Maximilian Goetz took top spot in GTD, with a 1:48.237 in the #32 Korthoff Competition Mercedes AMG-GT3. He was just 0.085 faster than Philip Ellis, in another Mercedes, this time the #57 Winward Racing machine. And, only one thousandth of a second slower was Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #21 AF Corse Ferrari, third place in class.
The next Roar session takes place 3:15pm UK time on Saturday 18th January, or 10:15am local.
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