Blomqvist Remains On Top in Second Practice at Indy

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Tom Blomqvist kept the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 on top of the time charts following the second practice session of the weekend for Sunday’s Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Blomqvist recorded a best lap of 1:15.714 to outpace the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Ricky Taylor by 0.583 seconds.

Nick Yelloly made it two Acuras in the top-three, followed by the No. 63 Lamborghini SC63 of Romain Grosjean in fourth.

The No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid of Dries Vanthoor completed the overall top-five in GTP.

While Nicklas Nielsen led the way in LMP2 in the No. 88 AF Corse Oreca 07 Gibson, it was Casper Stevenson who was quickest of all the GT cars, aboard his GTD class No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

Stevenson edged out the GTD Pro class pace-setting No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 of Albert Costa by less than a tenth of a second.

Of note, both the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R and No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo returned to action after encountering an oil leak and sensor issue, respectively, in Friday’s opening practice.

The 90-minute session saw two red flags late in the running, the first after the No. 8 Tower Motorsport Oreca of Sebastien Bourdais made heavy contact with the right-rear of Matt Campbell’s No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 in Turn 8 with 15 minutes to go, shedding debris over the track.

Bourdais’ car was handed incident responsibility and will therefore lose its fastest lap in qualifying this afternoon, which was one of multiple incidents that once again resulted in additional penalties handed down from race control.

The session ended with the second red flag with two minutes to go when the No. 63 Lamborghini of Mortara had contact with the No. 18 Era Motorsport Oreca of Tobi Lutke and Matt Bell’s No. 13 AWA Corvette in Turn 7, sending the LMP2 and GTD entries off track, and in the case of Lutke, into the wall.

Mortara’s GTP entry will also lose its fastest qualifying lap due to being determined as the cause of the accident.

Naveen Rao was involved in three incidents alone, including contact with the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Max Hesse that resulted in a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility to the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca.

The No 19 Van der Steur Racing Aston Martin had two spins in Turn 13, one each by Anthony McIntosh and Valentin Hasse-Clot, while both of the MSR Acuras had off-course excursions in the hands of Blomqvist and Nick Yelloly.

Brendan Iribe’s No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari stopped on track in Turn 13 and continued, while Graham Doyle also has an off-course moment in the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.

The Lamborghini SC63 of Eduardo Mortara, meanwhile, was served a drive-through penalty in the final 20 minutes for incident responsibility with the No. 75 SunEnergy1-sponsored Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Kenny Habul in Turn 7.

Habul, meanwhile, was later handed a drive-through penalty for leaving the pit box early upon the resumption of the session after the late red flag.

Qualifying is scheduled for 3:15 p.m. EST with live coverage on Peacock and IMSA’s YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Practice 2

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