Hand Quickest in Wet Practice 2 at Road Atlanta

Heavy rain was the dominant story of Thursday’s second one-hour practice for Petit Le Mans powered by Mazda.

Joey Hand topped the timesheets with an early flier of 1:16.937 in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Riley-Ford, before the rain intensified from a drizzle to a much heavier amount after about the 15-minute mark.

Shortly after that point, Mikhail Goikhberg had a heavy impact at Turn 5, at the bottom of the esses, in the No. 85 JDC/Miller Motorsports Oreca FLM09, to bring out a red flag.

Goikhberg was evaluated and released; however, the JDC/Miller crew faces substantial repairs to the car’s right rear quarter panel and rear wing assembly.

Several GT Daytona cars, notably the No. 007 TRG-AMR Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3, No. 97 Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3 and No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT America took the opportunity to run in the wet conditions once the session resumed, but otherwise there were precious few takers over the last half hour.

Neither the No. 70 SpeedSource Mazda SKYACTIV Diesel Prototype nor the No. 8 Starworks Motorsport Oreca FLM09 ran. A small oil leak resigned the Mazda to its paddock space while the Starworks car made it to pit lane, but never turned a lap.

Other class leaders in the largely wet session included Sean Rayhall in PC in the No. 88 Starworks Motorsport Oreca FLM09, points leader Patrick Pilet in GT Le Mans in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR, and Jeroen Bleekemolen in GT Daytona in the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper GT3-R.

Night practice takes places from 7:30 to 9 p.m. ET this evening.

RESULTS: Practice 2