Taylor Tops Opening Practice at Long Beach

Photo: John Dagys

Jordan Taylor has topped the time charts in an incident-filled opening practice for Saturday’s Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach.

Taylor reeled off a last-lap flyer of 1:14.982 in the two-hour session, bumping the No. 2 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan Onroak DPi of Ryan Dalziel from the top spot.

The No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac of Christian Fittipaldi was third, followed by the No. 55 Mazda RT24-P of Jonathan Bomarito, who made it three different DPi manufacturers in the top-four.

Defending Prototype champions Dane Cameron and Eric Curran completed the top-five.

Porsche led the way in GT Le Mans, with Patrick Pilet quickest in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR, ahead of teammate Kevin Estre in the No. 912 car.

The pair of CORE autosport-run entries, in the car’s street race debut, were nearly two-tenths clear of the No. 3 Corvette C7.R of Jan Magnussen, who was third.

GT Daytona, in its Long Beach debut, was led by the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Bryan Sellers, who edged out the Sebring class-winning No. 33 Riley Team AMG Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Jeroen Bleekemolen by 0.063 seconds.

The session saw three red flags, all for on-track incidents.

Renger van der Zande slammed into the Turn 1 wall, with a suspected brake issue for his No. 90 Visit Florida Racing Riley Mk. 30 Gibson, while IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship debutant Will Owen had contact with the tire wall to bring out another red.

The third red was for the the No. 14 3GT Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Scott Pruett, who made heavy left-side contact.

A number of other cars had slight contact with the wall, including the pace-setting WTR Cadillac.

Practice 2 is set for 4:45 p.m. PT, followed immediately by qualifying.

RESULTS: Practice 1

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