Heinrich Quickest in Night Practice at Road Atlanta

Photo: Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

Laurin Heinrich led the way in an incident-filled night practice for Motul Petit Le Mans.

Heinrich took the No. 7 Penske Porsche 963 to a best lap of 1:11.643 in the 90-minute session, edging out the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist by 0.392 seconds.

Blomqvist’s late session improvement bumped the sister No. 93 Acura of Nick Yelloly to third, while Filipe Albuquerque and Sheldon van der Linde completed the top-five for the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R and No. 24 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8, respectively.

Louis Deletraz was sixth on the time charts, ahead of the No. 6 Penske Porsche of Kevin Estre, who was involved in an incident that led to a red flag.

Estre and the No. 73 Pratt Miller Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson of Manuel Espirito Santo came together on the entry into Turn 11, resulting in the LMP2 car ending up in the gravel trap.

The Frenchman, who is already on probation by IMSA following his Road America incident with Jack Aitken, was handed a stop-and-hold plus-60 second penalty for incident responsibility.

Additionally, the No. 6 Porsche will lose its quickest lap in qualifying due to being the cause of the red flag.

Estre’s Porsche was taken behind the wall with suspected right-front suspension damage.

It wasn’t the only GTP car to have issues in the session, with the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura having lost time with a steering issue.

A second on-track incident involving a GTP car, contact between the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie of Roman De Angelis and Dan Goldburg’s repaired No. 22 United Autosports Oreca, also in Turn 11, resulted in a drive-through penalty for the Valkyrie.

LMP2 was led by the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca of Jonny Edgar, thanks to a 1:13.145 lap time, which came prior to a suspected engine issue for the ‘Rockie’-liveried entry.

Nico Varrone was quickest in GTD Pro in the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, ahead of Max Esterson’s No. 59 Team RLL McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.

The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Ben Barnicoat was third quickest in class.

Robby Foley, meanwhile, led the way in GTD in the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

Next up is qualifying, which is scheduled to begin at 2:20 p.m. EST with live coverage on Peacock as well as IMSA’s YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Practice 3

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