Dries Vanthoor was the quickest driver in an incident-ridden second IMSA SportsCar Championship free practice session at Road America.
The #24 RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 driver topped the second of two 90-minute free practice sessions, which were interrupted by two red flags.
A collision on the front straight between Marco Mapelli’s #9 Pfaff Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 and the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Oreca 07 of Benjamin Pederson triggered the latter red flag instance.
George Kurtz likely took avoiding action during the incident in his #04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR Oreca. He stopped at the pit exit before being taken behind the wall. Fortunately, they returned to the session having finished at the top of the LMP2 class.
The circuit officials estimated 20 minutes to repair the driver’s right-side wall on the front straight, though they did so in approximately 10.
Furthermore, Nick Yelloly was second-quickest in the #93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 GTP with a 1:49.682 lap time, only six-thousandths behind D. Vanthoor’s 1:49.676 benchmark.
Sheldon van der Linde put the #25 RLL BMW in third thanks to a 1:49.843 lap time, followed by Felipe Nasr’s 1:50.699 in the championship-leading #7 Porsche Penske 963.
Jack Aitken’s 1:50.767 set him fifth in the #31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R.
Crowdstrike tops LMP2, Corvette heads GTD Pro
In the LMP2 class, Malthe Jakobsen’s lap time of 1:52.823 put the #04 Oreca fastest ahead of the #11 TDS Racing Oreca, which topped yesterday’s FP1 session in LMP2, where Mikkel Jensen’s 1:52.852 took second position.
His team-mate Steven Thomas of the #11 TDS Racing Oreca, went off at Turn 6 before continuing again in the first of the two red flag disruptions.
Dane Cameron put a 1:52.924 lap time together for third in the #99 AO Racing ‘Spike the Dragon’ Oreca, followed by Connor de Phillippi’s 1:53.064 in the #43 Inter Eurpol Competition Oreca, as Scott Andrews rounded out the top five in the #79 JDC Miller MotorSports Oreca (1:53.220).
Chris Cumming’s #73 Pratt and Miller Motorsport Oreca made contact with Cameron’s team-mate PJ Hyett earlier in the session at T3, although stewards took no further action as the responsibility was inconclusive.
Whilst the second-red-flag incident remains under investigation, the #11 TDS Oreca joins the #2 and #22 United Autosports USA Oreca cars in all losing their fastest qualifying lap times later today, as they respectively triggered red flags during free practice.
Antonio Garcia went fastest in the GTD Pro-entered #3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R, with a 2:04.247 lap time. Giacomo Altoe followed in second in the #81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 (2:04.354) ahead of Tommy Milner’s time of 2:04.440 in the #4 Corvette.
Onofrio Triarsi was the quickest GTD-class car with a 2:04.866 time in the #021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari.
See here for the full results from FP2 – Qualifying takes place at 16:40 local time / 22:40 BST
