For much of the 90min session, Ryan Hunter-Reay had the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R at the top of the times, but when the track cleared of Pro-Am entries for the final 15 minutes, several cars went for qualifying sims, and Derani delivered a 1min45.750sec lap of the 3.741-mile Sebring course.
That ensured the Whelen Engineering #31 car was 0.376sec quicker than teammate Rockenfeller who is the only driver able to drive the #48 Ally Cadillac, since Toyota-contracted Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi are being forced to focus on their WEC efforts until the end of tomorrow’s WEC 1000-mile race.
Alex Lynn in the #02 Ganassi machine managed to eventually eclipse even Renger van der Zande’s best effort in the #01 and the pair were split by Wayne Taylor Racing’s Acura ARX-05, in which Ricky Taylor had a brief spin after setting his personal best.
Last year’s Sebring-winning team JDC-Miller MotorSports was sixth fastest, 1.8sec off the ultimate pace, but at least the car got track time. Meyer Shank Racing didn’t turn a lap in the #60 Acura as the Rolex 24-winning car was undergoing an engine change.
Rui Andrade delivered the fastest time in LMP2, his Tower Motorsports entry finishing the session 0.235sec ahead of Mikkel Jensen in the faster of the two PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports cars.
IMSA debutant Sebastian Montoya shone again, as per this morning, delivering the fastest time for the DragonSpeed entry ahead of Jonathan Bomarito in the second PR1/Mathiasen entry and Ryan Dalziel in the Era Motorsport machine.
Cameron Shields headed the LMP3 times in the Performance Tech Motorsports entry ahead of Malthe Jakobsen’s Sean Creech Motorsports car and Kay van Berlo in the Riley Motorsports car, thereby completing a Ligier 1-2-3. Ugo de Wilde in the Muehlner Motorsports entry was fastest Duqueine driver.
Andrea Caldarelli sent his TR3 Racing Lamborghini Huracan to the top of GTD Pro on only the fifth of 29 laps completed by the Italian machine, less than a tenth faster than Philipp Eng’s best effort in the #24 Rahal Letterman Lanigan-run works BMW M4.
With Davide Rigon’s Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 in third and Aaron Telitz fourth in the Vasser Sullivan #14 Lexus RC F, it meant four different marques were represented in the top four in class.
The variety continued lower down the order, for behind Augusto Farfus in the second BMW were Alex Riberas (Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage), Nicky Catsburg in the lone Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, Kyle Marcelli in the Racers Edge Motorsports with WTR Acura NSX, and then Julien Andlauer (WeatherTech Racing) and Felipe Nasr (Pfaff Motorsports) in a couple of Porsche 911 GT3 Rs.
Despite this being the first weekend running the BMW M4 in anger, Paul Miller Racing showed it had its act together already as Bryan Sellers topped the GTD times, over a quarter second ahead of Daniel Juncadella in the Gilbert Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, and outpaced by only two of the GTD Pro cars.
Giorgio Sernagiotto’s Cetilar Racing Ferrari 488 snatched third ahead of Richard Heistand in the Lexus RC F, with Bill Auberlen of Turner Motorsports ensuring there were two BMWs in the top five.
The 90min night practice session begins at at 7.45pm local (Eastern) time.
Click here for full second practice results.