IMSA Laguna Seca: Mazda moves to the top in FP2

On the only practice day before the penultimate round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Jarvis sent his Mazda RT24-P around the 2.238-mile course in just 1min15.692.

That was around 0.15sec faster than the best time of the morning session, and a similar margin over Cameron’s Acura Team Penske ARX-05 this afternoon.

In third was Jonathan Bomarito in the second Mazda, about 0.1sec quicker than the best of the Cadillac DPi-V.Rs – the championship leading Wayne Taylor Racing entry of Ryan Briscoe.

Tristan Vautier’s JDC-Miller Caddy was a hair quicker than Action Express Racing’s best from Felipe Nasr, while Matheus Leist spun the second JDC car bringing out the session’s only red flag.

However, strangest incident was when Nasr came out of the pits into the path of Helio Castroneves, moved to driver right of the track to let his compatriot through and was then dragged off the track by the #7 Acura. Given how these two entries ended Petit Le Mans, it appears the rivalry isn’t over. It served only to hurt Acura Team Penske, its the title-contending entry that Castroneves shares with Ricky Taylor, did not complete a lap.

The #3 Corvette C8.R remained fastest of the GT Le Mans field, Jordan Taylor lapping three-tenths faster than Connor De Phillippi in the #25 BMW M8.

Nick Tandy was third for Porsche, almost four-tenths back.

Robby Foley proved his teammate Bill Auberlen’s pace in this morning’s session was no fluke, as he again kept Turner Motorsports’ BMW M6 over half a tenth clear of the opposition, which was led by Spencer Pumpelly’s Audi R8.

Aaron Telitz (AIM Vasser-Sullivan Lexus RC F) and Matt McMurry (Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX) were next up ahead of their respective teammates.

Qualifying gets underway tomorrow at 8.30am local/11.30am ET, with the race to follow at 1.05pm local/4.05pm ET.

Cla	Num	Driver	Class	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	77	Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez	DPi	Mazda DPi	25	1'15.692
2	6	Juan Pablo Montoya Dane Cameron	DPi	Acura DPi	25	1'15.877	0.185
3	55	Jonathan Bomarito Harry Tincknell	DPi	Mazda DPi	27	1'16.037	0.345
4	10	Renger van der Zande Ryan Briscoe	DPi	Cadillac DPi	27	1'16.142	0.450
5	5	Sébastien Bourdais Tristan Vautier	DPi	Cadillac DPi	32	1'16.496	0.804
6	31	Felipe Nasr Pipo Derani	DPi	Cadillac DPi	22	1'16.509	0.817
7	85	Matheus Leist Stephen Simpson	DPi	Cadillac DPi	22	1'16.914	1.222
8	3	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	GTLM	Corvette C8.R	33	1'22.279	6.587
9	25	Bruno Spengler Connor de Phillippi	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	27	1'22.583	6.891
10	911	Nick Tandy Frédéric Makowiecki	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	31	1'22.963	7.271
11	24	Jesse Krohn John Edwards	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	30	1'23.228	7.536
12	4	Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C8.R	31	1'23.401	7.709
13	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	32	1'23.530	7.838
14	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	31	1'24.806	9.114
15	30	Rob Ferriol Spencer Pumpelly	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	31	1'25.388	9.696
16	14	Jack Hawksworth Aaron Telitz	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	24	1'25.444	9.752
17	86	Mario Farnbacher Matt McMurry	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	27	1'25.642	9.950
18	12	Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	28	1'25.642	9.950
19	57	Alvaro Parente Mikhail Goikhberg	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	28	1'25.701	10.009
20	63	Cooper MacNeil Alessandro Balzan	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	25	1'25.743	10.051
21	23	Ian James Roman De Angelis	GTD	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	29	1'25.894	10.202
22	76	Jeff Kingsley Paul Holton	GTD	McLaren 720S GT3	33	1'26.272	10.580
23	16	Ryan Hardwick Patrick Long	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	31	1'26.339	10.647
24	22	Till Bechtolsheimer Marc Miller	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	23	1'26.715	11.023
25	74	Gar Robinson Lawson Aschenbach	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	27	1'26.922	11.230
26	44	Andy Lally John Potter	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	28	1'27.252	11.560
27	7	Helio Castroneves Ricky Taylor	DPi	Acura DPi	3
28	52	Patrick Kelly Simon Trummer	LMP2	ORECA LMP2 07	0
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