Mazda Motorsports led the first practice session of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship round at Laguna Seca as LMP2 cars occupied the top three positions.
Joel Miller set the fastest lap at the Monterey (CA) circuit, setting a 1:18.564s time to give the team an early leg-up at its home race.
Miller, driving the #70 Mazda Prototype, pipped Jonathan Bomarito in the #55 car by 0.040 seconds to claim the in-garage bragging rights.
Bomarito’s 1:18.604 time was enough to put him 0.095 ahead of the Michael Shank Racing Ligier JS P2 of Oswaldo Negri Jr at the end of the 60 minute session.
Ricky Taylor turned in the quickest lap for a Daytona Prototype with a 1:19.055 aboard the #10 Corvette.
The Wayne Taylor Racing man edged out the #31 Action Express Corvette DP and the DeltaWing DWC13 at the close of play.
In GT Le Mans, Ferrari occupied first and third spots on the 488 GTLM’s Laguna Seca debut. Alessandro Pier Guidi was the benchmark for Friday’s session, the Italian submitting a 1:22.975 on his sixth lap to put his Scuderia Corsa machine in front.
Second in class was the #66 Ford GT of Joey Hand, 0.072 seconds adrift, with the Risi Competizione Ferrari driven by Toni Vilander completing the top three. The fastest Corvette finished fourth, while the two Porsche 911 RSRs struggled for pace.
Prototype Challenge saw the #8 Starworks Motorsport Oreca FLM09 take the top spot, with Renger van der Zande finishing three tenths ahead of the CORE Autosport entry driven by Colin Braun.
GT Daytona was led mostly by the Team Seattle/Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R of Alex Riberas which posted a 1:25.560 effort early on. Riberas’ time held out as the quickest, with the Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-R finishing second and the #33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper third.
Second practice for round four of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship at Laguna Seca takes place later today (April 29) at 17:20 local time.
