Pla Paces Second Practice at Sebring

Olivier Pla took the No. 57 Krohn Racing Ligier JS P2 Judd to the top of the timesheets in the second one-hour practice session for the 63rd Mobil 1 Twleve Hours of Sebring Thursday afternoon.

Pla was several tenths of Joao Barbosa’s best time of the day thus far set in the morning, but like Barbosa was the only driver in the 1:52 range in leading the session.

The Frenchman set a best lap of 1:52.731 to pace the field.

Ozz Negri was second in the other entered Ligier, the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Ligier JS P2 Honda, at 1:53.554. Barbosa’s teammate Christian Fittipaldi was third in the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP at 1:53.818.

Joey Hand and Ricky Taylor completed the top five in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Riley-Ford and No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP, respectively.

Tom Kimber-Smith took the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca FLM09 to the top of Prototype Challenge at 1:57.130.

The GT classes were tightly bunched. John Edwards set a best lap of 1:59.859 in the No. 24 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE to lead GT Le Mans, which saw the top eight cars from five different manufacturers separated by just 0.642 of a second.

In GT Daytona, Andrew Davis laid down the best time of 2:04.840 in the No. 22 Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT America. Porsche was in five of the top seven positions in the session.

Only one red flag interrupted the session, when Bruno Junqueira stopped on course in the No. 11 RSR Racing Oreca FLM09 past Turn 14.

Meanwhile the No. 33 TI Automotive/Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper GT3-R returned to the track with 15 minutes remaining in the session after sorting out some mechanical issues that took it behind the wall in the morning.

Night practice is next up for the TUDOR Championship, which runs from 7:15 to 8:45 p.m. ET and local time.

RESULTS: Practice 2