Dixon Tops Sebring Night Practice

Scott Dixon led Thursday’s 90-minute night practice for the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, where IndyCar drivers set four of the fastest five times.

It was the second session of three today that the New Zealander led, albeit with a slower time than the 1:52.357 he set in first practice.

Dixon’s best time at night in the No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford EcoBoost Riley was 1:53.090. He’ll share the car with fellow open-wheel drivers Tony Kanaan and Sage Karam.

The No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP was next at 1:53.654, with Sebastien Bourdais setting that car’s best time. Justin Wilson of Michael Shank Racing was third in the No. 60 Ford EcoBoost Riley at 1:53.671.

The second Ganassi DP, the No. 01 driven by Scott Pruett, was next at 1:54.394. Simon Pagenaud led the P2-spec cars in fifth place at 1:54.645 in the No. 2 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b.

Continuing the open-wheel laden theme, ex-open-wheeler Bruno Junqueira posted the fastest time in PC. Junqueira took the No. 09 RSR Racing Oreca FLM09 to the top at 1:57.001.

CORE autosport’s No. 54 and 8Star Motorsports’ No. 25 Orecas rounded out the top three, each within three tenths of the class leader.

After coming close to topping the times in the two afternoon sessions, Corvette Racing took control in GT Le Mans.

The No. 4 Corvette C7.R driven by Oliver Gavin set the GTLM pace at 2:00.157.

The pair of BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTEs were second and third. John Edwards brought the No. 56 up to second at 2:00.695 with Joey Hand third in the sister No. 55 at 2:00.713.

SRT Motorsports’ No. 91 SRT Viper GTS-R was fourth with the No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR fifth.

Porsche went 1-2 in GT Daytona with the No. 22 Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT America top of the timesheets at 2:04.570, courtesy of Leh Keen.

Magnus Racing was second, with Andy Lally clocking in at 2:04.901 in the No. 44 Porsche 911 GT America.

Both of those two cars see new third drivers in for this race. Phillip Frommenwiler joins Keen and Cooper MacNeil at AJR, with Marco Seefried alongside Lally and John Potter at Magnus.

Riley Motorsports clocked in third with Jeroen Bleekemolen in the No. 33 SRT Viper GT3-R at 2:05.293. A pair of Ferrari 458 Italia GT3s, the No. 49 Spirit of Race and No. 63 Scuderia Corsa entries, completed the top five.

The 90-minute night practice session featured several red flag interruptions. Among them, Starworks Motorsport’s No. 8 PC car stopped on track at Turn 7, the No. 94 Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3 had an off at Turn 13, Muehlner Motorsport America’s No. 18 Porsche 911 GT America had a spin at Turn 1 and the Highway to Help No. 50 Dinan Riley had an incident at Turn 5.

Final practice before qualifying occurs Friday morning at 9:55 a.m. ET.

RESULTS: Session 3