Tom Blomqvist set the fastest lap time in the first practice session for the Daytona 24 Hours, with Acura setting a 1:34.576 to quickest, on a cold, chilly morning in Florida.
The Briton, in the #60 Meyer Shank Acura ARX-06, was 0.176 faster than his teammate, Nick Yelloly, in the sister #93 car. Blomqvist’s session-leading car did the joint-most laps in the hour and a half session, putting in 42 laps across all three drivers.
Third and fourth were the two BMWs, with Dries Vanthoor onboard the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8, faster than Sheldon van der Linde in the #25 BMW. Vanthoor was 0.291 off Blomqvist, while van der Linde was a further tenth and a half off.
Fifth was Felipe Nasr in the #7 Porsche 963, almost seven and a half tenths off Blomqvist’s session topping time. The three Cadillacs were sixth, seventh and eighth, Jack Aitken in the #31 V-Series.R followed by Louis Deletraz in the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing-run Cadillac. His teammate at WTR, Filipe Albuquerque in the #10 car, was behind him in eighth.
The session had one red flag, when the #5 Proton Competition Porsche 963 had a tyre failure at turn 1, leaving debris over the track which needed to be cleared up.
TDS, Lamborghini on top in LMP2 and GTD
In LMP2, Mikkel Jensen was the pacesetter, with a 1;37.986 onboard the #11 TDS Racing Oreca 07-Gibson. Malthe Jakobsen, in second, was almost half a seconf off in the #4 Crowdstrike by APR Oreca 07-Gibson, while Rasmus Lindh was third in the #22 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson.
Lamborghini’s Andrea Caldarelli with fastest in GTD Pro with a 1:47.539, behind the wheel of the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. Mike Rockenfeller was second in the #64 Ford Mustang GT3, just under six hundredths off Caldarelli, while Madison Snow in the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3.
However, the fastest GT car from both classes was actually in the GTD category; Franck Perera in the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini. Perera set a 1:47.321 to go quickest. It was, in fact, a Lamborghini 1-2 in GTD, with Trent Hindman almost four tenths off in the #45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini. Third was Ayhhancan Guven in the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3.R.
Qualifying is next up, starting at 2:10pm local time.
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