Aitken Remains Out Front in Second Watkins Practice

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Jack Aitken led the way in a stop-start second IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice session for Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, keeping his Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R atop the time sheets.

Aitken, who was quickest in Friday’s opening practice, laid down a best lap of 1:33.865 lap time to edge out fellow Cadillac driver Ricky Taylor, in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing entry, by 0.131 seconds.

Colin Braun and Renger van der Zande both made late-session improvements to set the third and fourth quickest times in their Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06s, demoting Dries Vanthoor to fifth in the No. 24 Team RLL BMW Hybrid V8.

Jordan Taylor was sixth in the No. 40 WTR Cadillac, while Nico Varrone was the quickest of the Porsche 963s in his privateer Proton Competition entry in seventh.

LMP2 was paced by the No. 73 Pratt Miller Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson of series debutant Manuel Espirito Santo, who posted the 11th quickest time overall.

GTD cars occupied the top three positions in the production-based ranks, led by the No. 36 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Alec Udell, thanks to a 1:45.258 lap time.

Parker Thompson and Zach Robichon were second and third quickest in GTD aboard their No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 and No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo entires, respectively.

The No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Sandy Mitchell led the way in GTD Pro, meanwhile.

The 90-minute session saw two red flags and a number of incidents, the first for contact between Malthe Jakobsen’s No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca and the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Adam Adelson, that resulted in significant left-front damage to the prototype.

AJ Muss, meanwhile, spun his No. 021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 on two occasions, while a second red came out for an issue for the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca of Dane Cameron, which stopped on track with smoke coming from the rear of the car.

The Algarve Pro Racing-run Oreca, which returned later in the session, as well as Muss’ Ferrari, will have their best qualifying times docked due to being the cause of the red flags.

Qualifying gets underway at 2:20 p.m. EST with live coverage on Peacock and IMSA’s YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Practice 2

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