Photo: Juergen Tap/Porsche
Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Laurens Vanthoor set the fastest time in a final practice session for this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona interrupted by three red flags.
Vanthoor laid down the time to beat in Friday morning’s final one hour, 15 minute session with less than five minutes on the clock aboard the No. 6 Porsche 963, a 1:36.475.
That knocked off the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R from the top spot, with Ricky Taylor’s best effort eclipsed by just 0.066 seconds.
Third-fastest was the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor ahead of the second of the Penske Porsches, the No. 7 of Julien Andlauer, and Louis Deletraz in the second of the WTR Cadillacs.
The pole-winning No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 was only tenth-fastest, ahead of only the solo Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie that suffered technical issues that limited its running to the final 20 minutes.
Charles Milesi led the way the LMP2 class aboard the No. 11 TDS Racing Oreca 07 Gibson with a best time of 1:39.909 to topple the No. 73 Pratt Miller Motorsports car piloted by Enzo Fittipaldi.
In GTD Pro, Maro Engel set the best time aboard the 75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, a 1:46.251, beating Max Hesse in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO that was moved to the rear of its class for the race post-qualifying.
GTD was led by IndyCar star Scott McLaughlin in the DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
The first red flag occurred early in the session, during the 15-minute Bronze-only segment, as Henrik Hedman came to a stop in the middle of the track exiting the Le Mans chicane in the No. 19 DragonSpeed Corvette.
Not long after the session resumed, Jon Field suffered a minor impact with the barriers at the chicane in the No. 37 Intersport Racing Oreca LMP2.
Both cars returned to action after their issues, with the DragonSpeed car going on to set the second-fastest time in the GTD class.
The third and final interruption came when the Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo stopped at Speedway Turn 2, but that car also returned to action before the session ended.
Both the No. 19 Van der Steur Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo and the No. 52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen LMP2 suffered late spins but continued.
The 64th running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona begins at 1:40 p.m. Saturday.
RESULTS: Practice 3
Jamie Klein is Sportscar365’s Asian editor. Japan-based Klein, who previously worked for Motorsport Network on the Motorsport.cоm and Autosport titles, covers the FIA World Endurance Championship and SUPER GT, among other series.
