Liefooghe Leads, Hardwick Crashes in Wednesday Practice

Gregory Liefooghe set the fastest time of Michelin Pilot Challenge Practice 1 at Daytona International Speedway which was affected by a lengthy red flag for a hard crash from Ryan Hardwick.

Hardwick’s Wright Motorsports Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport went off track in Turn 7 just prior to the halfway mark of the session and made significant wall contact, causing a 28-minute delay.

Following the crash, Hardwick was taken to a local hospital for further evaluation. Additional updates will be provided by the team as they become available.

Hardwick also had a testing crash in his GT Daytona class Porsche 911 GT3 R during the Roar Before the 24 which necessitated the Wright Motorsports team to switch chassis prior to the qualifying race for the Rolex 24 last weekend.

The best time of the session came in Liefooghe’s third tour of the circuit in the No. 43 Stephen Cameron Racing BMW M4 GT4.

Kuno Wittmer was 0.052 seconds behind in the No. 13 AWA McLaren 570S GT4, while Robby Foley checked in with the third fastest time in the No. 96 BMW for Turner Motorsport.

Mikey Taylor ended the session as the fastest in the TCR class for JDC-Miller Motorsports in the No. 17 Audi RS3 LMS TCR.

Roy Block was second on the time charts in the No. 5 KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR, followed by Denis Dupont in the Van der Steur Racing Hyundai Veloster N TCR.

A second red flag came out in the final minutes for the No. 88 VGMC Motorsports Honda Civic Type R TCR of Ruben Iglesias who stopped on track exiting the bus stop.

Practice 2 gets underway Thursday at 9:45 a.m. ET.

RESULTS: Practice 1