Bamber Paces Opening Practice at Road Atlanta

Earl Bamber set the pace for the opening Free Practice Session for Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

The New Zealander reeled off a lap of 1:09.583 in the No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R. to lead the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05 of Tom Blomqvist by 0.332 seconds.

Bamber’s CGR stablemate Sebastien Bourdais rounded out the top three in the No. 01 Cadillac, ahead of the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac of Pipo Derani.

Kamui Kobayashi took fifth, leading the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura of Filipe Albuquerque and Tristan Vautier, who rounded out the class for JDC-Miller Motorsports.

Tower Motorsport led the LMP2 class thanks to a best lap of 1:11.320 of Louis Deletraz.

Deletraz put the No. 8 Oreca 07 Gibson ahead of the No. 81 DragonSpeed Oreca of Sebastian Montoya and Ryan Dalziel for Era Motorsport.

LMP3 was led by the No. 54 CORE Autosport Ligier JS P320 Nissan, with Colin Braun posting a best lap of 1:15.676.

Ben Barnicoat set the quickest lap in GTD Pro, with the Briton’s time of 1:19.384 in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 the only Pro car to outpace the GTD field.

Barnicoat topped the session despite a moment at Turn 5 towards the end of the session that saw him run wide and through the gravel, although he was able to continue with further issues.

Matt Campbell came second in class for Pfaff Motorsports, while Bryan Sellers’ best effort of 1:19.500 ensured the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 led the GTD category.

The session remained largely green throughout, although it was red-flagged after an hour of running when Scott Huffaker hit the wall aboard the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca at Turn 4.

Out of 43 cars, only one car did not set a representative lap time: the No. 44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 only completed two laps at the start of the session and did not return to the track afterwards.

The second Free Practice session gets underway at 2:55 p.m ET.

RESULTS: Practice 1