Taylor Quickest in Opening Road America Practice

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Ricky Taylor led the way in the opening IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice session for Sunday’s IMSA Fastlane Sportscar Weekend at Road America.

Taylor stormed to a best lap of 1:50.539 in the final 15 minutes of the session, bumping the No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R of Earl Bamber to second.

The No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 was 0.296 seconds quicker than Bamber’s CGR Cadillac.

Pipo Derani put the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac third on the time charts, followed by the DPi points-leading No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Tom Blomqvist.

The No. 01 CGR Cadillac completed the top-five after completing only 18 laps in the session.

LMP2 was led by the No. 18 Era Motorsport Oreca 07 Gibson of Ryan Dalziel, while Malthe Jakobsen paced LMP3 in his No. 33 Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier JS P320 Nissan.

It came despite two early session incidents for the 18-year-old Dane, who is making his Road America debut.

Robert Megennis led a Lamborghini 1-2 in GTD, with the CarBahn with Peregrine Racing and NTE Sport Huracan GT3 Evos, as well as the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Frankie Montecalvo all quicker than the GTD Pro pace-setter.

The No. 25 Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 of Connor De Phillippi was quickest in GTD Pro, three-tenths slower than Megennis’ best time.

The 90-minute session saw two red flags, the first for the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Jack Hawksworth, which stopped on track with a fuel pickup-related issue.

The second red came for an accident by Dennis Anderson at the Kink, although the No. 20 High Class Racing Oreca 07 Gibson escaped significant damage.

It returned to the track but spun in the hands of Anderson with moments left in the running.

Practice 2 is scheduled to get underway at 3:15 p.m. CT and will run until 5 p.m. local time.

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