Van der Zande Leads Sebring Night Practice

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Renger van der Zande ended up quickest in Thursday night’s practice for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Cadillac.

Van der Zande stormed to the top of the time charts late in the session, having reeled off a 1:49.179 in his Chip Ganassi Racing-run entry to edge out Augusto Farfus’ No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 by 0.258 seconds.

Filipe Albuquerque was third in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06, with Tom Blomqvist fourth in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac and Mathieu Jaminet completing the top-five in the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963.

LMP2 was led by the No. 11 TDS Racing Oreca 07 Gibson of Mikkel Jensen, also thanks to a late flyer.

It was 0.007 seconds clear of Paul-Loup Chatin in the No. 99 AO Racing entry, with Ben Hanley third in the No. 2 United Autosports Oreca.

Earl Bamber put the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R on top of GTD Pro, while Antonio Fuoco was quickest of the GTD contenders in the No. 47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296 GT3.

Dirk Mueller had drama in the No. 65 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3, which spun on the back straight before continuing without a red flag late in the running.

The 90-minute session, however, saw three reds, the first occurring on the opening lap for the No. 33 Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier JS P217 Gibson of Jonny Edgar, which stopped on track.

A second brief red was for an incident involving the No. 52 Inter Europol by PR1/Mathiasen Oreca, which apparently had contact with a GTD car.

The session came to an early end when Colin Braun made contact in the Turn 17 barriers in the No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca.

Qualifying is set to get underway Friday at 12:50 p.m. EDT with live coverage on Peacock and IMSA.tv.

RESULTS: Practice 3

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