Negri Paces Opening Practice at Monterey

At a track where LMP2-spec cars shone last year, Ozz Negri took the newest LMP2-spec car entered in this year’s Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix Powered by Mazda to the top of the timesheets in Friday morning’s opening TUDOR United SportsCar Championship one-hour practice session.

Negri, aboard the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Ligier JS P2 Honda, set the fastest time of 1:20.077 around the 2.238-mile Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. He’ll share the car as usual, with John Pew.

The No. 90 VisitFlorida.com Racing and No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DPs were next, at 1:20.267 and 1:20.470, respectively.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s pair of Northern California drivers, Joey Hand and Scott Pruett, were fourth in the No. 01 Riley-Ford at 1:20.985 with the DeltaWing coupe clocking in fifth at 1:21.429.

Bruno Junqueira, last year’s Prototype Challenge class polesitter, led the PC field at 1:21.727 in the No. 11 RSR Racing Oreca FLM09.

BMW and Corvette locked down the top four spots in GT Le Mans. The Long Beach-winning No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE of Dirk Werner was best in the eight-car class at 1:23.862 just ahead of the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R of Antonio Garcia at 1:23.890. Third-placed John Edwards in the second BMW was also within half a tenth, with the second Corvette fourth.

Porsche 911 GT Americas were 1-2 in GT Daytona. Atlanta natives Andy Lally, in the No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT America and Spencer Pumpelly, in the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT America, clocked in at 1:27.738 and 1:28.096, respectively.

The top Audi R8 LMS and Ferrari 458 Italia were third and fourth.

There were no red flag interruptions and no major incidents in the opening session.

Second practice runs from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. PT and local time, later this afternoon.

RESULTS: Practice 1