Visit Florida Paces Practice 1 at Road America in Ligier Debut

Photo: Brian Cleary/BCPix.com

Marc Goossens topped the first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice of the weekend at Road America in wet-but-drying conditions in the debut of Visit Florida Racing’s new Ligier JS P217 Gibson.

The Belgian driver turned the fast lap of 1:59.977 in the final minutes of the session, part of a trend of faster lap times as track conditions continued to improve throughout the session.

This marked just the second time the Visit Florida team has had the car on track following a shakedown test at Autobahn Country Club earlier this week.

The No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi V.R. came home second 0.913 seconds adrift courtesy of Christian Fittipaldi’s best lap, while Olivier Pla in the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Ligier posted the third-fastest time.

Lime Rock race winner Patrick Pilet was quickest of the GT Le Mans runners in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR, followed by the No. 4 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R of Oliver Gavin.

Patrick Lindsey put Porsche on top of GT Daytona as well in the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Wisconsin native James French topped the Prototype Challenge charts for Performance Tech Motorsports in the No. 38 Oreca FLM09, followed by the BAR1 Motorsports entries driven by Don Yount and Gustavo Yacaman, respectively.

The hour-long practice ran without major incident. Practice 2 is scheduled for 4:10 p.m. CT this afternoon.

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