Practice report
IMSA Daytona 24
Daytona 24 Hours: Cadillacs dominate first practice
The all-new DPi Cadillacs topped the first practice session for the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, with Christian Fittipaldi setting the pace for Action Express Racing.
Charles Bradley
Edited: Jan 26, 2017, 7:44 PM
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The top class of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship is a DPi versus LMP2 battle for 2017, and Fittipaldi’s Cadillac DPi lapped the Daytona road course in 1m38.196s, 0.796s ahead of the Wayne Taylor Racing version of Ricky Taylor. That car features NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon in its lineup this weekend.
Michael Conway was third quickest in the second Action Express car, with the leading LMP2 being the DragonSpeed Oreca of former GP2 star Ben Hanley, 2.16s off the fastest Cadillac’s pace.
Mathias Beche was fifth fastest in the JDC-Miller Motorsports Oreca, ahead of the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsport Ligier of Tom Kimber-Smith. Former WEC champion Brendon Hartley was seventh in the fastest of the ESM Nissans.
Ford’s Olivier Pla set the GTLM pace, just a few hundredths of a second ahead of Porsche newcomer Laurens Vanthoor in the all-new mid-engined 911 RSR. Vanthoor was two tenths clear of the second of four Ford GTs, driven by Joey Hand, and Tony Vilander was fourth fastest for Ferrari.
Alessandro Balzan set the GTD pace in his Ferrari 488, ahead of the Lamborghini of Christian Englehart.
The PC class was led by Gustavo Yacaman for BAR1 Motorsports.
There were no major problems during the session, although it did end under a red flag in the closing seconds.
Daytona 24 Hours first practice times
PosDriversClassChassisTimeGap 1 
Christian Fittipaldi
Filipe Albuquerque
Joao Barbosa P Cadillac DPi 1'38.196 2 
Jeff Gordon
Jordan Taylor
Ricky Taylor
Max Angelelli P Cadillac DPi 1'38.992 0.796 3 
Mike Conway
Dane Cameron
Eric Curran
Seb Morris P Cadillac DPi 1'40.019 1.823 4 
Loic Duval
Nicolas Lapierre
Henrik Hedman
Ben Hanley P ORECA 1'40.356 2.160 5 
Mathias Beche
Mikhail Goikhberg
Chris Miller
Stephen Simpson P ORECA 1'40.396 2.200 6 R.C. Enerson
Tom Kimber-Smith
Jose Gutierrez
Mike Guasch P Ligier 1'40.534 2.338 7 Bruno Senna
Brendon Hartley
Ed Brown
Johannes van Overbeek P Nissan DPi 1'40.883 2.687 8 Stéphane Sarrazin
Nick Heidfeld
Sébastien Buemi
Neel Jani P ORECA 1'41.002 2.806 9 René Rast
Marc Goossens
Renger van der Zande P Multimatic/Riley 1'41.476 3.280 10 Spencer Pigot
Jonathan Bomarito
Tristan Nunez P Mazda DPi 1'41.771 3.575 11 James Hinchcliffe
Tom Long
Joel Miller P Mazda DPi 1'42.130 3.934 12 Brendon Hartley
Pipo Derani
Scott Sharp
Ryan Dalziel P Nissan DPi 1'43.033 4.837 13 
Gustavo Yacaman
Don Yount
Mark Kvamme
Chapman Ducote
Buddy Rice PC ORECA FLM09 1'43.668 5.472 14 
David Cheng
Johnny Mowlem
Adam Merzon
Trent Hindman
Tom Papadopoulos PC ORECA FLM09 1'44.201 6.005 15 Stefan Mücke
Olivier Pla
Billy Johnson GTLM Ford GT 1'44.755 6.559 16 
Richard Lietz
Kevin Estre
Laurens Vanthoor GTLM Porsche 911 RSR 1'44.784 6.588 17 Sébastien Bourdais
Joey Hand
Dirk Müller GTLM Ford GT 1'44.946 6.750 18 Giancarlo Fisichella
James Calado
Toni Vilander GTLM Ferrari 488 GTE 1'45.023 6.827 19 Harry Tincknell
Tony Kanaan
Andy Priaulx GTLM Ford GT 1'45.116 6.920 20 Patrick Pilet
Frédéric Makowiecki
Dirk Werner GTLM Porsche 911 RSR 1'45.127 6.931
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