Nasr Leads Action Express 1-2 in Damp Opening Practice

Felipe Nasr set the fastest time during a damp first practice session for this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The reigning IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar champion turned in the best lap of 1:36.108 behind the wheel of the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R that he will share with Pipo Derani and Eric Curran.

Only four of the eleven DPi cars set flying laps on slick tires during a session that took place under drying conditions after some heavy early morning rain.

Half a second back from Nasr was Filipe Albuquerque, who gave Action Express an early 1-2 with the second-best time in the team’s No. 5 Cadillac.

Tristan Vautier’s 1:37.595 in the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac and Jonathan Bomarito’s 1:38.561 in the No. 55 Mazda RT-24P were the only other competitive times set on Thursday morning.

The fifth-quickest lap overall went to Frederic Makowiecki in the best of the GT Le Mans class entries.

Makowiecki’s time of 1:45.334 in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR on slick Michelins put a gap of eight-tenths over Mathieu Jaminet in the German manufacturer’s No. 912 car.

Joey Hand moved Ford Chip Ganassi Racing up to third late on, although the 2018 Rolex 24 runner-up’s final effort was over a second off the Porsche pace up front.

In the main GT Daytona session, Corey Lewis ended the morning quickest on a 1:46.577 for Lamborghini squad Paul Miller Racing.

This lap came during the 15-minute extension of the event’s first practice session dedicated to silver and bronze drivers in the secondary GT class.

The fully dry conditions enabled silver-rated Lewis to get ahead of Audi factory driver Kelvin van der Linde, who led the way after the first 45-minutes of running.

Henrik Hedman topped the charts in LMP2 for DragonSpeed with a 1:46.657 in the team’s FIA World Endurance Championship Oreca 07 Gibson.

RESULTS: Practice 1