Chip Ganassi Racing’s Richard Westbrook broke a stranglehold on the top of the speed charts in the dry from Acura Thursday (Jan. 26) by turning in the fastest lap in practice at 134.643 mph in his Cadillac V-LMDh. However, the day was overshadowed by nine red flags, including one for a significant crash.
Session No. 1
The first session ran in a start-stop fashion due to five separate red flags. Some of them were minor, but a couple had implications on the rest of the weekend.
The biggest of the incidents occurred with 25 minutes to go when Winward Racing’s Lucas Auer went wide exiting turn 2, dropped a wheel into the dirt, then spun and hit the wall head-on in his Mercedes. The session was stopped for 20 minutes as the safety crews removed Auer from the car and cleaned up the scene.
Auer was transported to a local hospital after being checked over at the infield care center. There has been no official update given on his condition.
Earlier on, Performance Tech Motorsports’ John DeAngelis spun and hit the wall exiting the Le Mans chicane to bring out a red flag. DeAngelis is ok and the Performance Tech team made repairs to get the car back out.
The other red flags were due to debris and a couple of stalled cars. One was the Kelly-Moss Road & Race No. 92 Porsche for Alec Udell and the other was for the GTD Pro-class Iron Lynx Lamborghini for Andrea Caldarelli.
In addition, Alessio Deledda spun his Lamborghini exiting the International Horseshoe. That did not bring out a red flag, but it did result in a penalty because he rejoined the track directly in front of Wright Motorsports’ Zacharie Robichon.
Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport’s Filipe Albuquerque was fastest overall with a lap at 134.388 mph in his Acura ARX-06. Albuquerque was .266 seconds faster than Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Lynn. Rolex 24 at Daytona pole sitter Tom Blomqvist was third, then Renger van der Zande. Porsche’s Mathieu Jaminet was fifth.
PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports’ Paul-Loup Chatin was fastest in LMP2 with a lap at 130.730 mph, ninth overall. Chatin was nearly three-tenths of a second faster than Era Motorsport’s Oliver Jarvis. TDS Racing’s Mikkel Jensen was third in the No. 11 entry, followed by Proton Competition’s Gianmaria Bruni. Job van Uitert in the second TDS entry was fifth.
Riley Motorsports’ Felipe Fraga was fastest in LMP3 with a lap at 124.786 mph, 20th overall. The lap was .091 seconds faster than…
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