Bamber Tops Night Practice Aboard AXR Cadillac

Action Express Racing topped Thursday evening’s second practice session of the Rolex 24 at Daytona weekend as Earl Bamber set the fastest time.

Bamber set the fastest lap of 1:35.914 in the No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.R in the opening stages of a 90-minute session that took place in darkness following qualifying, in which the Kiwi’s co-driver Jack Aitken had annexed pole only for the car to fail tech.

That put the AXR car 0.056 seconds clear of the No. 7 Penske Porsche 963 of Julien Andlauer.

Tom Blomqvist made it three different manufacturers in the top three in the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06, 0.233 seconds slower than Bamber.

Rounding out the top five were Jordan Taylor aboard the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac and the best of the BMW M Hybrid V8s, the No. 24 car in which Sheldon van der Linde set the fastest time.

Antonio Felix da Costa paced the LMP2 class in the pole-winning No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 Gibson with a best lap of 1:39.791.

That was 0.015 seconds up on the No. 83 AF Corse Oreca driven by Ferrari Hypercar ace Nicklas Nielsen, while Dane Cameron was third-fastest in the No. 99 AO Racing car.

Corvette Racing locked out the top two places in GTD Pro as Antonio Garcia set the quickest time across both GTD classes, a 1:46.742, in the pole-winning No. 3 car.

Splitting the two works Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs on the overall GTD leaderboard was the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Danny Formal, who ended up with the best time in GTD, a 1:46.768.

Nico Varrone was a further 0.064 seconds back in the No. 4 Corvette in third ahead of a pair of Ferrari 296 GT3 Evos, the No. 033 Triarsi Competizione car of James Calado and the No. 34 Conquest Racing car of Thierry Vermeulen.

An incident involving the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO brought out the red flags as Eduardo Barrichello shed a wheel and spun backwards across the track at Turn 5, miraculously without hitting the barriers or any other car.

Later in the session, the No. 22 United Autosports LMP2 car and the No. 19 Van der Steur Racing Aston Martin returned to pit lane with damage having made contact on the approach to the Le Mans chicane, while the 13 Autosport Corvette also suffered an engine fire in the closing moments of the session.

Final practice for the Rolex 24 is slated for 11:05 a.m. on Friday.

RESULTS: Practice 2