Blomqvist Quickest; Valkyrie Second in Opening Practice

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Acura Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist laid down the quickest time in opening practice for Sunday’s Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America, in a session that saw the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie set the second quickest overall time.

Blomqvist’s 1:51.255 lap time in the No. 60 Acura ARX-06 was just 0.073 seconds shy from Ross Gunn’s best lap in the No. 23 Aston Martin, which had its best session performance to date across both IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship competition.

The No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Jack Aitken was third quickest, with Dries Vanthoor fourth in the No. 25 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8.

Nick Tandy made it five different GTP manufacturers in the top-five in the No. 7 Penske Porsche 963.

While LMP2 was led by the No. 11 TDS Racing Oreca 07 Gibson of Mikkel Jensen, the second-placed No. 22 United Autosports entry brought out the session’s first red flag with 36 minutes to go when Daniel Goldburg went into the Turn 8 gravel.

The second red, which ended the session six minutes early, was for the sister No. 2 United Oreca of Phil Fayer, who had contact with the No. 021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of Onofrio Triarsi before slamming into the wall at Canada Corner.

As a result, both of the United cars will lose their quickest times in qualifying due to bringing out red flags in practice.

Russell Ward was fastest of all the GT cars in the GTD class No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, thanks to a 2:04.991 lap time set early in the 90-minute session.

Ward led a GTD sweep of the top three positions, which saw Parker Thompson go second and Elliott Skeer third in their No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 and No. 120 Wright Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R entries, respectively.

The No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 of Giacomo Altoe, meanwhile, was the quickest GTD Pro entry, nearly one-second slower than Ward’s chart-topper.

Practice 2 is on tap for Saturday at 9:05 a.m. CST.

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