Level 5, Briscoe Paces Thursday COTA Test

Photo: John Dagys

With Muscle Milk Pickett Racing electing not to take part in testing, it was Level 5 Motorsports that topped the overall time charts again at Circuit of The Americas.

Ryan Briscoe, fresh from last weekend’s V8 Supercars race, peddled the No. 551 HPD ARX-03b to a best lap time of 1:55.423 in Thursday afternoon’s 90-minute test.

The Australian IndyCar ace edged out the No. 16 Dyson Racing Lola B12/60 Mazda of Chris McMurry and Tony Burgess, the P1 class pace-setting car, by 1.721 seconds.

Level 5’s sister No. 552 entry was third quickest overall and second in class, followed by the pair of Extreme Speed Motorsports entries.

The GT class was led by home-state favorites Risi Competizione, with Matteo Malucelli rocketing to a 2:04.106 lap time in his No. 62 Ferrari F458 Italia he shares with Olivier Beretta.

Five manufacturers were represented in the top-five in GT.

Marco Holzer put the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Porsche second on the GT time sheets, ahead of the No. 91 SRT Viper GTS-R and No. 56 BMW Team RLL Z4 GTE in third and fourth respectively.

The top-five was completed by Baltimore winners Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia in their No. 3 Corvette C6.R.

CORE autosport paced the PC class, thanks to a 1:59.077 lap time by Tom Kimber-Smith, who has swapped rides with Colin Braun this weekend.

GTC, meanwhile, was paced by the No. 66 TRG Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car of Damien Faulkner, who will share controls with Ben Keating on Saturday.

Official practice kicks off track activities tomorrow at 8 a.m. CDT.

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