Joan Barbosa started the 12 Hours of Sebring week off by putting his Action Express Racing Corvette at the top of the timesheets for the first practice session.
The defending TUDOR United SportsCar Championship champion lapped the 3.74 mile track in 1:52.485 in the car he shares with regular co-driver (and fellow 2014 champion) Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastien Bourdais. That effort was 1.2 seconds faster than Ozz Negri’s best lap in the Michael Shank Racing Ligier JS P2-Honda, the Brazilian, in turn a tenth faster than the similar coupe – running with Judd power – of Krohn Racing.
The Corvette DP’s of Wayne Taylor Racing and Marsh Racing completed the top five.
Defending race winner Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates – entering a lone Ford-Riley Daytona Prototype – were ninth fastest overall, a spot ahead of the best of the PC class as Colin Braun took the CORE Autosport car around the track in 1:55.144.
Dirk Werner was the best man in GT machinery, the #25 BMW Z4 leading a pair of Porsches – one from the works Porsche North America stable, the other the Falken Tire entry – at the top of GT Le Mans. The #3 Corvette was fourth fastest in class as the top eight all set laps within a second of Werner’s marker in the car he shares with Bill Auberlen and Augusto Farfus.
Mario Farnbacher paced the GT Daytona class in the Team Seattle/Alex Job Racing Porsche co-driven by Ian James and Alex Riberas. His best lap stopped the clock at 2:03.455.
