Philipp Eng set the quickest lap time during the 90-minute second free practice session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Six Hours of the Glen.
During a red flag-interrupted session, the BMW Team RLL driver surprisingly finished on top.
In the end, the GTP competitors were as close as ever on the timesheets with just one second covering 10 of the 11 GTP entrants.
Having been three months since the previous IMSA Endurance Cup event at Sebring, further tracktime running commenced ahead of the coveted six-hour race this Sunday 30 June at Watkins Glen International.
Conditions were hot and humid (70%) with an increased likelihood of wet conditions for qualifying and the race, which may not be as unfamiliar to the proportional number of drivers in the 56-car field who returned from last week’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, including overall winners Nicklas Nielsen (#88 AF Corse Oreca 07) and Antonio Fuoco (#47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296).
Soon after the green flag, it was a challenging start for Charlie Eastwood in the #8 Tower Motorsport who lost his Oreca 07 LMP2 on his outlap at the Turn 7 right-hander prompting him to spent the first half hour of the session in the pits.
Free practice is the place when teams and drivers explore and adjust their car setup whilst also understanding track limits and so it was the #13 AWA Corvette Z06 GT3.R which was first of multiple cars penalised with drive-through penalties for multiple track limits excursions.
A brief five-minute red flag was called after the #33 Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier JS P217 LMP2 of Lance Willsey suffered an impact at the Turn 9 left-hander, as the session resumed with 45 minutes remaining.
The sole Ligier sat sixth in the 13-car LMP2 category before their incident, although some teams were yet to set representative lap times.
At the sharp end of the field, the top-seven GTP cars resided within a second of each other and including Cadillac, Porsche and Acura machinery before Philipp Eng put a BMW on top late in the session.
A second red flag was declared at the precise moment the chequered flag was out because of Connor de Phillippi’s #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 which suffered an impact at Turn 1.
Eng was quickest with a 1:33.725 lap time in the #24 BMW GTP followed by Mathieu Jaminet’s #6 Porsche Penske 963 and his 1:33.900.
Third place in the GTP category was taken by Sebastien Bourdais narrowly behind in the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R with a 1:33.958.
Tom Blomqvist put the #31 Whelen Cadillac in fourth place due to an even tighter 0.010 seconds back with a 1:33.968, as Phil Hanson rounded off the top five in the #85 JDC Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 with a 1:34.349.
In LMP2, Felipe Fraga put the #74 Riley Oreca 07 at the top with a 1:35.269.
Second place was claimed by Colin Braun in the #04 Crowdstrike by APR Oreca 07 after he set a 1:35.947, as Nielsen took third in his #88 Richard Mille AF Corse Oreca 07 owing to a fastest lap time of 1:36.135.
Fourth was taken by last week’s Le Mans LMP2 winner Bjoy Garg and his 1:36.327 in the #22 United Autosports USA Oreca 07, as Nico Varrone took fifth in the #81 DragonSpeed Oreca 07 with a 1:36.616.
GTD Pro was topped by Madison Snow in the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 (1:44.907), followed by the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F which was quickest in the GTD class (1:44.930).
Daniel Serra put the GTD Pro #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 in third (1:45.010), as Ross Gunn laid a 1:45.548 in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage for fourth place.
Jack Hawksworth rounded off the top five in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus GTD Pro car by setting a best lap time of 1:45.573.
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