The #01 Cadillac DPi-V.R lapped the 3.741-mile course in 1min46.756sec on its 25th of 27 laps to eclipse its nearest rival by three-quarters of a second. That second place was held by Tom Blomqvist in the Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05, which was barely three-hundredths faster than the second Ganassi Cadillac pedaled by Earl Bamber.
Mike Rockenfeller ran all 24 laps in Action Express Racing’s extra endurance entry, and wound up fourth fastest. IMSA Radio reported that while WEC team Toyota Gazoo Racing have allowed Rocky’s co-drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez to race the Ally Cadillac, they are not permitted to practice in it until the Saturday morning warm-up session, their priority until that moment being the Sebring 1000-mile WEC race.
Still, Rockenfeller managed to outpace AXR’s full-season entry, the Whelen Engineering machine steered by Pipo Derani, as well as the defending Sebring 12hr winning team, JDC-Miller MotorSports, and Wayne Taylor Racing’s Acura.
Louis Deletraz topped the LMP2 times with the Tower Motorsport Oreca, a tenth ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya in the DragonSpeed entry.
Giedo van der Garde was third for Racing Team Nederland ahead of Mikkel Jensen’s best effort for PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports and Guy Smith of United Autosports.
It was a Ligier 1-2-3 in LMP3, with Colin Braun topping the ranks for CORE autosport, a little over one-tenth quicker than Rasmus Lindh in the Performance Tech Motorsports car that had caused the first of two red flags 13 minutes into the session when it briefly stopped on course.
Felipe Fraga put Riley Motorsports into third ahead of the fastest Duqueine, that of Muehlner Motorsports’ Ugo de Wilde.
Nick Yelloly headed the GT times with a 2min00.518sec effort in the GTD Pro #24 BMW M4 run by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, around 0.15sec faster than class rival Daniel Serra in Risi Competizione Ferrari 488.
Russell Ward was top GTD performer in the Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 but unfortunately had a damaging off at Turn 3, after only 12 laps, bringing out the second red.
Still, Winward’s time was unbeatable for the remainder of the session, and it was Turner Motorsports’ Bill Auberlen who came closest to toppling Ward.
The other BMW M4 in GTD, that of Paul Miller Racing, impressed with third place in the hands of former class champion Bryan Sellers, given that this will be PMR’s first race weekend with the German car, after six years running a Lamborghini Huracan.
The second session of 90mins will begin at 2.25pm local (Eastern) time.
