Koch Leads Opening VIR Practice

Photo: Fred Hardy/SRO

Kenton Koch paced the opening Pirelli GT4 America practice session at Virginia International Raceway for Random Vandals Racing.

Koch, in the No. 97 BMW M4 GT4, reeled off a best lap of 1:54.112 halfway through the 45-minute session to outpace the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport of John Capestro-Dubets by three-tenths.

The No. 51 AutoTechnic BMW was third quickest overall and in the Silver class.

Rodrigo Baptista led the way in the Pro-Am ranks in the No. 5 Flying Lizard Motorsports Nissan Z NISMO GT4, thanks to a 1:54.551 lap time by the Brazilian.

It was less than a tenth quicker than the Silver class No. 23 TechSport Racing Nissan, which completed the overall top five.

Tyler McQuarrie was sixth in the No. 82 BimmerWorld BMW, followed by Parker Thompson’s No. 999 Hanley Motorsports Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO and the Kay van Berlo-driven No. 7 ACI Motorsports Porsche.

Mike Skeen made a late-session improvement to go nintgh in the No. 53 AutoTechnic BMW, with the No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG completing the overall top-ten.

The No. 98 Random Vandals BMW of Paul Sparta and Kris Wilson was quickest in the Am class, meanwhile, with the 12th quickest overall time.

The session saw a single red flag, for an incident involving the No. 07 Precision Racing L.A. Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO of Alexandra Hainer in Turn 4.

The second GT4 America practice session of the day gets underway at at 5:15 p.m. EDT.

RESULTS: Practice 1

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John