Blomqvist Tops Second Practice at Sebring

Photo: Rick Dole/IMSA

Tom Blomqvist led the way in the second practice session for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, keeping Acura atop the time charts.

Blomqvist’s 1:47.049 in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 edged out the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Sebastien Bourdais by 0.026 seconds.

Times tumbled late in the 90-minute session, with only GTP and GTD Pro class cars on the 3.7-mile airfield circuit.

Louis Deletraz also made a late-session improvement in his No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura, which had topped the time charts earlier in the session with Ricky Taylor at the wheel.

Deletraz’s 1:47.197 bumped Pipo Derani’s No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac to fourth, with Felipe Nasr completing the top-five in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963.

The BMW M Hybrid V8s brought up the rear of the eight-car GTP class field, with the No. 25 entry of Sheldon van der Linde completing only eight laps after undergoing a torque sensor change that left it in the garage for most of the session.

Russell Ward was quickest of the GT cars in his GTD class No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, meanwhile.

Ward’s 2:01.218 lap time edged out the No. 80 T-Rex-liveried AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Seb Priaulx by 0.034 seconds.

The No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R of Tommy Milner was fastest of the GTD Pro class entries, slotting in third among the production-based cars.

A late session improvement by Ross Gunn put the No. 23 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 second quickest in GTD Pro and fourth overall.

LMP2 was led by the No. 18 Era Motorsport Oreca 07 Gibson of Christian Rasmussen, who edged out Nolan Siegel, who is making his debut in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR entry.

Dakota Dickerson, meanwhile, posted the quickest time in LMP3 aboard the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan.

The session saw two red flags, the first for Josh Burdon spinning his No. 74 Riley Ligier at Tower, followed by another stoppage for Jack Aitken, who nosed the Action Express Cadillac into the Turn 3 barriers.

Both cars returned to action to complete their respective sessions.

The third and final practice session of the day gets underway at 7:45 p.m. ET and runs through 9:15 p.m.

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