Level 5 Paces Tuesday Test at COTA

Photo: John Dagys

American Le Mans Series teams had their first on-track action at Circuit of The Americas Tuesday, with a four-hour test session in preparation for Saturday’s race.

Level 5 Motorsports wound up quickest in the P2 class and 1-2 on the overall time sheets.

Marino Franchitti peddled the freshly built No. 551 HPD ARX-03b to an unofficial best time of 1:56.580, with the Scot, who currently leads the P2 championship standings, also recording the quickest lap in the sister No. 552 machine.

Franchitti was joined by Guy Cosmo and team owner Scott Tucker, with all three drivers getting time in both cars this afternoon. Ryan Briscoe, en route from last weekend’s V8 Supercar race, will join the trio later this week.

The pair of Extreme Speed Motorsports HPDs posted the third and fourth quickest times, with the No. 02 entry of Johannes van Overbeek and Ed Brown nearly two seconds slower than Franchitti’s unofficial pace setting time.

Quickest of the P1 competitors was the No. 16 Dyson Racing Lola B12/60 Mazda of Chris McMurry and Tony Burgess, which was fifth quickest overall, thanks to an unofficial 1:59.720 lap time.

While newly crowned class champions Muscle Milk Pickett Racing did not participate, Tuesday saw the public on-track debut of the new DeltaWing Coupe, which completed 27 laps with an unofficial best time of 2:04.690.

Paul Miller Racing’s Marco Holzer was quickest in GT, leading a Porsche 1-2, which saw the No. 06 CORE autosport Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, rebuilt after the Baltimore crash, record the second quickest time in the hands of an impressive Colin Braun.

Braun, who currently leads the PC championship, makes his first start in a GTE-spec Porsche this weekend, pairing with Porsche factory driver Patrick Long.

The No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca FLM09 of Dane Cameron and Mike Guasch led the way in the PC ranks, edging out the debuting Starworks Motorsport entry of Ryan Dalziel and John Pew in second.

GTC saw the Baltimore class-winning No. 44 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car post the quickest time in the class.

Thirty of the 34 starters took part in the optional test. No major incidents were reported.

A second test session is on tap for Thursday, followed by the start of official on-track activity on Friday.

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