Bourdais held off Ganassi teammate Alex Lynn on the run down to Turn 1, but Tom Blomqvist in the Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05 had to brake extremely late to dissuade Pipo Derani’s Action Express Racing Cadillac from passing for third. Behind them, Tristan Vautier of JDC Miller MotorSports deposed Filipe Albuquerque’s Wayne Taylor Racing Acura to take fifth, but they both gained a place on Lap 7 when Bourdais dived down the inside of a GT car at the hairpin but ran out of steering lock on corner exit and came up against the outside wall. He resumed a chastened sixth, 14sec off the lead.
But he was charging hard and by Lap 19, Bourdais was not only past Albuquerque (who had made a very early first stop for new rear tires) and Vautier, but also filling the mirrors of Derani in third, having set a fastest lap one second quicker than anyone else.
Derani himself was also trying to focus ahead, for Blomqvist was filling his windshield, as the pink-n-white Acura tried to find a…
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