OAK Racing Tops Sebring Winter Test Session 1

OAK Racing’s Morgan-Nissan was fastest in the first session of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship IMSA Winter Test at Sebring International Raceway. 42 teams are preparing in Florida for next month’s Mobil 1 62nd Annual 12 Hours of Sebring.

In the morning session the No. 42 of Gustavo Yacaman, Alex Brundle and Olivier Pla lapped the circuit in 1:53.204. Second fastest was the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP of Max Angelelli, Ricky Taylor and Jordan Taylor, almost eight tenths of a second behind the OAK Racing car.

Muscle Milk Pickett Racing completed the top three, their No. 6 Oreca 03 Nissan being 1.386s slower than the No. 42 OAK Racing Morgan Nissan. The new Starworks Motorsport Riley-Honda DP completed seven laps on its track debut.

The No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR was fastest in GTLM. The car, driven by Patrick Long, Michael Christensen and Jörg Bergmeister, set a 2:00.048 in the first session. BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE and the second Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR completed the top three. The BMW was seven tenths slower than the Porsche in the morning.

GTD was led by the TRG-AMR Aston Martin V12 Vantage. The No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Audi R8 LMS finished the session in second place, ahead of the No. 33 Riley Motorsports SRT Viper GT3-R. In PC the No. 25 8Star Motorsports Oreca beat the BAR1 Motorsports cars, before crashing out of the session.

The first session, which started at 9.30 am,  was interrupted by a red flag twice. First because the SpeedSource Mazda stopped on track and again with just over an hour remaining when Robert La Rocca crashed the No. 25 Oreca FLM09 in Turn 7.

Several other drivers had problems, in particular at Turn 5. A number of cars went wide, most of them stayed clear of the wall. The Chip Ganassi Racing Riley DP was the only car clipping the tire barrier at Turn 5, causing cosmetic damage to the car and causing a brief local yellow.

RESULTS: Session 1