Goulart Fastest in Friday Practice at VIR

Ethan Goulart set the overall fastest practice time on Friday at Virginia International Raceway after a pair of Toyota GR Cup North America practice sessions amidst an adjusted schedule.

The TechSport driver reeled off a 2:06.593 benchmark lap in Practice 1 in his No. 72 Toyota GR86 Cup car to outpace Westin Workman’s best lap in the No. 13 BSI Racing entry from the morning session by 0.492 seconds.

Spike Kohlbecker was just behind, a mere 0.013 seconds off of Workman in his RVA Graphics Motorsports by Speed Syndicate Toyota and just over one-half of a second down on Goulart’s leading pace.

Jaxon Bell proved to be the fourth-fastest driver on the day in his Copeland machine, ahead of Lucas Weisenberg, who rounded out the overall top five times.

Overall, track conditions proved favorable in the morning hours, with the top five fastest times of the day all coming from the first 30-minute practice session.

Will Robusto’s Practice 2-topping 2:07.560 lap time was good enough for sixth-fastest overall on Friday for RVA.

Run time in Practice 1 was interrupted by an early red flag following an on-track incident involving the No. 71 TechSport entry of Christian Weir and the No. 78 Nitro Motorsports car of Ethan Ayars in the first two minutes of the session.

Practice action resumed 13 minutes later, with a message from race control saying that the incident would be reviewed post-session.

It was revealed in a steward’s bulletin that no further action will be taken on the incident, given that Ayars went off track, avoiding Weir, who had gone off and spun upon re-entry.

Notably, Ayers did not record a representative lap time prior to the accident in first practice, with John Dean and RVA’s Isabella Robusto failing to set times in either session.

A separate bulletin found Workman responsible for causing a collision during the first session and was assessed a drive-through, which he served in Practice 2.

Practice 2 time was also condensed after an incident during McLaren Trophy America’s second practice session resulted in the suspension of track activities and a revised Friday schedule. As such, GR Cup Practice 2 was shortened to 25 minutes.

Qualifying to set the grid for Race 1 is slated for 8:55 a.m. EST Saturday morning ahead of Race 1 later that afternoon.

RESULTS: Practice 1/Practice 2