Bamber Quickest in Opening Practice at VIR

Photo: Brian Cleary/BCPix.com

Earl Bamber and Porsche North America have topped the time charts in opening practice for this weekend’s Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway.

Bamber reeled off a quick lap of 1:43.229 in his No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR, edging out the No. 66 Ford GT of Joey Hand by just 0.018 seconds.

Antonio Garcia made it three different GT Le Mans manufacturers in the top-three, wheeling his No. 3 Corvette C7.R to 1:43.586 in the 60-minute session.

Ryan Briscoe (Ford Chip Ganassi Racing) and Giancarlo Fisichella (Risi Competizione) completed the top-five overall and in class.

Madison Snow led a Lamborghini 1-2 in GT Daytona, with the Paul Miller Racing driver posting the quickest time just at the end of the session.

Snow’s 1:45.722 lap in the No. 48 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 edged out the No. 16 Change Racing Lamborghini of Spencer Pumpelly by 0.238 seconds.

The No. 44 Magnus Racing Audi R8 LMS of Andy Lally was third quickest, while a late improvement by Mike Skeen put the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Dodge Viper GT3-R fourth on the time sheets.

The session saw two red flags, the first for the No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW M6 GTLM of Dirk Werner, which lost its roof and rear window on-track.

Andrew Davis, meanwhile, spun and made contact with the barriers in Turn 15 in his No. 6 Stevenson Motorsports Audi with five minutes remaining. The Audi sustained light right-side damage and drove back to the pits.

The session restarted, which allowed the late improvements from a handful of GTD contenders.

Practice 2 is scheduled for 3:35 p.m. ET.

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