Aitken Tops Opening Watkins Glen Practice

Photo: Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

Jack Aitken led the way in the first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice session of the weekend at Watkins Glen International.

Aitken, in the GTP championship-leading No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, reeled off a 1:33.846 lap time early in the 90-minute session to outpace the No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Renger van der Zande by 0.315 seconds.

The Dutchman’s teammate Tom Blomqvist was third quickest in the No. 60 Acura, with Dries Vanthoor and Ricky Taylor completing the top-five for BMW M Team WRT and Wayne Taylor Racing, respectively.

Laurin Heinrich put the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 sixth on the time charts ahead of Louis Deletraz, the pair of Porsche Penske Motorsport entries as well as the No. 25 BMW.

The No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie ended up 12th overall as the slowest GTP car, slotting in behind the LMP2 front-runner despite running in the lightest-ever configuration in series competition this weekend.

LMP2 was led by the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca 09 Gibson of Dane Cameron, ahead of recent Le Mans class winner Tom Dillmann in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition entry.

Valentin Hasse Clot was quickest of all the GT cars in his No. 068 YRB Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

The Frenchman in the former Van der Steur Racing entry was 1.150 seconds quicker than Spencer Pumpelly in the returning No. 44 Magnus Racing Aston.

Christopher Mies ended up as the best-placed GTD Pro entry in third, thanks to a 1:46.095 lap time in the No. 65 Ford Mustang GT3 EVO, with Antonio Fuoco fourth outright and third quickest in GTD.

All 54 cars eventually got on track after several issues, including a mechanical black flag for the No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca, a sensor issue for the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO and a vibration for the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Temerario GT3.

The session had two red flags, the first for the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Dillon Machavern, who spun into the Turn 10 gravel trap and will lose the car’s best time in qualifying as a result.

A suspected mechanical stoppage for the No. 45 WTR Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Trent Hindman brought out the second red ten minutes later.

The second and final practice session prior to qualifying is set for Saturday at 10:05 a.m. EST, ahead of qualifying at 3:40 p.m. EST, which will be streamed live on Peacock and IMSA’s YouTube channel.

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