Renger van der Zande topped opening practice for the Mobil1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
The Dutchman posted a best time of 1m 46.756s behind the wheel of the #01 Chip Ganassi Cadillac DPi-VR. It put him over seven-tenths clear of the second-placed #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05 driven by Tom Blomqvist.
Earl Bamber was third in the sister #02 Cadillac, ahead of Mike Rockenfeller in the #48 Ally Cadillac.
Rockenfeller is the only driver who will be able to drive the Action Express-entered car in practice and qualifying, as team-mates Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez are under orders from Toyota to not drive the car until Friday’s 1000 Miles of Sebring WEC race is finished.
Rockenfeller himself is also pulling double duty with Vector Sport this weekend.
Whelen Engineering’s Pipo Derani completed the top five ahead of Tristan Vautier and Filipe Albuquerque.
LMP2 was led by the #8 Tower Motorsport ORECA 07-Gibson of Louis Deletraz, while Colin Braun led proceedings in LMP3 for CORE Autosport.
Braun’s team-mate Jon Bennett had an ultimately harmless spin at the final corner in the closing minutes of the session, but was able to continue.
The session was halted twice, first caused by the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports Ligier JS P320-Nissan and later by a turn 3 crash for the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo driven by Russell Ward.
The Mercedes remained at the top of the GTD leaderboards after the crash, thanks to a 2m 00,906s lap that Philip Ellis posted earlier in the session.
Only two cars were quicker, both in GTD Pro. Nick Yelloly was quickest in the #24 BMW M4 GT3, leading the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo driven by Daniel Serra.
