Derani Gives Cadillac Clean Sweep of Thursday Practice

Pipo Derani made it a clean sweep of best times for Cadillac teams across Thursday practice ahead of the Rolex 24 at Daytona after topping the final session of the day for Action Express Racing.

The pole-winner and new GTP lap record holder turned a lap of 1:35.708 aboard the No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.R to top the final night-time session ahead of Saturday’s race, albeit falling just over a tenth shy of Alex Palou’s benchmark from Practice 2.

Derani concluded the session with an advantage of 0.310 seconds over fellow countryman Felipe Nasr in the No. 7 Penske Porsche 963, setting his best lap just after a red flag that came 14 minutes into the 90-minute session.

The session was stopped after an off for the No. 74 Riley LMP2 car of Josh Burdon at Turn 6, although Burdon was able to limp back to the pits under his own power. The car rejoined the session after spending 38 minutes on pit lane.

Sebastien Bourdais put the No. 01 Ganassi Cadillac third on the car’s final flying lap of the session, a 1:36.109, jumping ahead of the two BMW M Hybrid V8s, Connor De Philippi leading the Bavarian marque’s charge in the No. 25 car ahead of Philipp Eng in the sister No. 24 machine.

The lead Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06, the N0. 10 of Colton Herta, was sixth-fastest.

Malthe Jakobsen set the time to beat in the LMP2 class aboard the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR Oreca 07 Gibson with a 1:39.166, which was 0.306 seconds up on the No. 2 United Autosports car of Pato O’Ward.

Era Motorsports driver Christian Rasmussen was the last driver to get within half a second of Jakobsen’s benchmark.

Following their engine dramas earlier in the day, the two Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs led the way in GTD Pro with a one-two lockout, Earl Bamber setting a best of 1:46.770 to top the class in the No. 4 car ahead of Alexander Sims in the No. 3.

Best of the rest was the No. 60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2s of Matteo Cairoli, followed by Harry Tincknell’s No. 65 Ford Mustang GT3.

Topping the GTD class, and fifth among GTD cars overall, was the No. 86 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Larry ten Voorde.

Practice continues on Friday with a final session at 11:20 a. m. ET.

RESULTS: Practice 3