Acura Team Penske finished one-two in the opening practice session around the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Friday, the fourth round of the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Ricky Taylor put the #7 Acura DPi he shares with Helio Castroneves to the top of the time sheets with a best lap of 1:13.601s, which was more than four-tenths of a second faster than the sister #6 of Juan Pablo Montoya and Dane Cameron, with the former setting that cars best time of the session.
Filipe Albuquerque put the #5 Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R he shares with Joao Barbosa into third, with the duo aiming for a third win of the season this weekend after previous victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January and last time out around the streets of Long Beach.
Simon Trummer was fourth in the #85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Oreca 07, while the top five was rounded out by the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac, with Felipe Nasr setting the car’s best time.
The GT Le Mans class was headed by the Porsche GT Team, with Earl Bamber putting the #912 911 RSR he shares with Laurens Vanthoor to the top with a lap of 1:20.148s, just over three-tenths of a second clear of the #3 Corvette Racing C7.R of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia.
The #24 BMW Team RLL of Jesse Krohn and John Edwards was third fastest, while the fourth fastest GT machine was the leading GT Daytona entry, the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW of Bill Auberlen and Dillon Machavern.
Also intervening in the GT Le Mans battle was the GT Daytona #93 Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 entry in fifth, with Lawson Aschenbach putting the car ahead of the GT Le Mans entries of #911 Porsche of Patrick Pilet and the #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing machine of Joey Hand.
Jack Hawksworth was the third fastest GT Daytona entry, with the 3GT Racing Lexus driver finishing just ahead of Dominik Baumann in the sister car, while the top five in class was rounded out by Bryan Sellers in the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan.
