Pipo Derani has topped the timing sheets in night practice for Motul Petit Le Mans, setting the quickest lap time in the Whelen Engineering Cadillac.
Derani’s best effort of 01:10:175 was quickest in a session that saw the top five runners covered by just over a tenth of a second. Renger van der Zande was second in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac, just 0.040s behind Derani.
The two Team Penske Acuras came in third and fourth, with Dane Cameron’s #6 Acura ARX-05 the fastest of the pair ahead of Ricky Taylor’s #7 Acura. The top five in class was completed by the #55 Mazda RT24-P of Harry Tincknell, who was 0.129s behind Derani.
In LMP2, the #8 Tower Motorsport by Starworks ORECA 07-Gibson returned to the top of the timing sheets thanks to Mikkel Jensen, who set the fastest time ahead of Performance Tech Motorsports’ Colin Braun and PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports’ Simon Trummer.
Porsche, meanwhile returned to the top of the leaderboards in GTLM with a one-two. Laurens Vanthoor was quickest in thr #912 Porsche 911 RSR-19, with team-mate Fred Makowiecki behind in second place.
Nicky Catsburg, back behind the wheel of the #3 Corvette C8.R to join Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor, was third fastest while Augusto Farfus was fourth in the #24 BMW M8 GTE.
In GTD, AIM Vasser Sullivan found their way to the top of the timing sheets for the first time as Jack Hawksworth put the #14 Lexus RC F GT3 on top, with Jan Heylen second in the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
Markus Winkelhock, the Audi factory driver who has been inserted into the line-up for the #30 Team Hardpoint Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo, was third fastest ahead of Alessandro Balzan. Balzan returns to the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo in place of Toni Vilander and was fourth, just ahead of the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in the hands of multiple time Le Mans winner Darren Turner.
The session at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta was red-flagged twice, most notably for a collision between the #74 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Ben Keating and the #85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac of Chris Miller, which also suffered an incident in an earlier session.
