Castroneves Paces Incident-Free Warmup

Helio Castroneves set the fastest lap in a trouble-free warmup session for this afternoon’s IMSA Road Race Showcase at Road America.

The Team Penske driver posted a time of 1:50.947 behind the wheel of the No. 7 Acura ARX-05, beating his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya in the No. 6 car by two-tenths of a second.

Castroneves and Ricky Taylor will start today’s race from second on the grid, sharing the front row with Montoya and Dane Cameron.

Third-quickest in the warmup was Tristan Nunez, who steered the No. 77 Team Joest Mazda RT24-P DPi that will start third on the grid to a time of 1:51.781.

Nunez was followed closely in the leaderboard by his Mazda teammate Harry Tincknell, while Tristan Vautier set the best Cadillac DPi-V.R time in the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports car.

BMW Team RLL led the way in GT Le Mans, courtesy of Tom Blomqvist’s 2:01.794 effort aboard the No. 25 BMW M8 GTE.

Blomqvist originally set the pole time in yesterday’s qualifying session before both BMWs were sent to the back of the class grid for a ride height infraction.

The pole-sitting No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R set the fourth-best time in the warmup, behind the No. 67 Ford GT of Richard Westbrook which ran 0.622 seconds off the class pace, and the No. 24 BMW.

GT Daytona was paced by the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, with Jeroen Bleekemolen submitting a time of 2:06.329.

Local driver James French set the LMP2-class pace in the Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson, clocking in at 1:55.863.

The IMSA Road Race Showcase is set to get underway at 1:35 p.m. local time (2:35 p.m. eastern).