Daniel Goldburg grabbed the fastest time in the LMP2 class for Saturday’s Daytona 24 Hours for United Autosport USA.
Goldburg, in the #22 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson, set a time of 1:38.676, just over three tenths of a second ahead of the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca 07-Gibson of Ben Keating, with the second United Autosports car, driven by Nick Boulle in third, over half-a-second adrift of his team-mate’s time.
Chris Cumming of Pratt Miller Motorsports, in the #73 Oreca — which also features Pietro Fittipaldi and new Prema IndyCar signing Callum Ilott of Great Britain – was fourth with a 1:39.217, two tenths ahead of the fifth-placed #11 TDS Racing machine of Steven Thomas.
AO Racing’s PJ Hyatt was in P6, espite bringing-out the red flag after beaching his car on the exit of turn 1. He subsequently lost his best lap time, which would have put him third, and will have to settle for sixth. Luis Perez Companc was seventh quickest in the #88 AF Corse.
Riley’s Gar Robinson – partnered by former Formula 1 driver Felipe Massa – set the eighth-fastest lap, with #04 Crowdstrike Racing’s George Kurtz ninth. The car is also occupied by IndyCar star Colton Herta, racing for the second time at Daytona.
Jon Field set the 10th-fastest lap for #43 Inter Europol Competition – which also features Formula E title-leader Antonio Felix da Costa – with Tobias Lutke 11th for Era Motorsport.
The 12 cars were rounded-up by Tower Motorsport’s John Farrano, whose 1:41.224 was a whole two-and-a-half seconds adrift of Goldburg’s time.
Kurtz was quickest at the halfway point of the session, but as tyres began to come-up to temperature slowly due to the cooler conditions, the lap-times would soon tumble, and Goldburg would eventually be the one to put his car onto P1, despite being down in the first two sectors.
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