Practice report

Mid-Ohio IMSA: Mazda sets 1-2 in wet-dry FP2

Oliver Jarvis led temporary teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay by 0.064sec to send the pair of Mazda Team Joest RT24-Ps to the top of the times in Mid-Ohio as the track surface dried and several teams started to switch to slicks in the closing moments.

The session was interrupted by two red flags. After 6mins, Ricky Taylor went off at Turn 12 in the #7 Acura ARX-05, but got back to the pits. At the halfway point in the 1-hour session, T12 claimed another victim, the Moorespeed Audi R8 of Will Hardeman.

Indeed there were several off-course excursions at T12 and T2 but thankfully without significant damage, although it made the track surface increasingly perilous as more and more mud was dragged on.

Hunter-Reay, who is substituting for Harry Tincknell – today’s WEC GTE Pro polesitter in the Ford GT – held top spot until Jarvis’ very last lap of 1min28.158.

Simon Trummer and Misha Goikhberg grabbed third and fourth in the two JDC Miller Motorsports Cadillac DPi-V.Rs ahead of Helio Castroneves who took over the #7 Acura following his teammate’s mishap.

Most startling of all was the AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F of Jack Hawksworth which wound up sixth overall – 3sec ahead of its nearest GTD rival, 2sec ahead of the fastest GTLM car – thanks to a change to slicks in the final laps.

Will Owen fell off the track in his Juncos Racing Cadillac but was able to finish seventh ahead of both Filipe Albuquerque in Action Express Racing’s similar car.

A strong final lap from Nick Tandy put the #911 Porsche 911 RSR at the head of the GTLM class ahead of Jesse Krohn’s BMW M8 and the Earl Bamber/Laurens Vanthoor #912 Porsche.

Aside from Hawksworth, the rest of the GT Daytona runners were led by Scott Hargrove/Zacharie Robichon’s Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, Marco Seefried/Pat Long in the similar machine of Park Place Motorsports, and Mario Farnbacher in the faster of the two Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSXs.

Third practice begins at 8.00am local (Eastern), with qualifying commencing at 11.40am.

Cla	Num	Driver	Class	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	77	Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez	DPi	Mazda DPi	26	1'28.158			92.207
2	55	Jonathan Bomarito Ryan Hunter-Reay	DPi	Mazda DPi	21	1'28.222	0.064	0.064	92.140
3	84	Simon Trummer Stephen Simpson	DPi	Cadillac DPi	26	1'28.556	0.398	0.334	91.793
4	85	Mikhail Goikhberg Tristan Vautier	DPi	Cadillac DPi	28	1'28.941	0.783	0.385	91.395
5	7	Helio Castroneves Ricky Taylor	DPi	Acura DPi	19	1'29.676	1.518	0.735	90.646
6	14	Richard Heistand Jack Hawksworth	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	26	1'30.190	2.032	0.514	90.130
7	50	Will Owen Kyle Kaiser	DPi	Cadillac DPi	21	1'30.412	2.254	0.222	89.908
8	5	Joao Barbosa Filipe Albuquerque	DPi	Cadillac DPi	14	1'30.678	2.520	0.266	89.645
9	911	Patrick Pilet Nick Tandy	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	22	1'32.142	3.984	1.464	88.220
10	24	Jesse Krohn John Edwards	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	21	1'32.905	4.747	0.763	87.496
11	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	23	1'33.301	5.143	0.396	87.124
12	9	Scott Hargrove Zacharie Robichon	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	14	1'33.354	5.196	0.053	87.075
13	73	Patrick Long Marco Seefried	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	25	1'33.410	5.252	0.056	87.023
14	86	Mario Farnbacher Trent Hindman	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	24	1'33.483	5.325	0.073	86.955
15	67	Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook	GTLM	Ford GT	24	1'33.572	5.414	0.089	86.872
16	66	Sébastien Bourdais Dirk Muller	GTLM	Ford GT	24	1'33.777	5.619	0.205	86.682
17	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	25	1'33.940	5.782	0.163	86.532
18	3	Jan Magnussen Antonio Garcia	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	23	1'33.971	5.813	0.031	86.503
19	74	Gar Robinson Lawson Aschenbach	GTD	Mercedes-AMG	25	1'34.176	6.018	0.205	86.315
20	6	Dane Cameron Juan Pablo Montoya	DPi	Acura DPi	19	1'35.656	7.498	1.480	84.980
21	4	Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	25	1'36.220	8.062	0.564	84.481
22	57	Katherine Legge Christina Nielsen	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	24	1'36.374	8.216	0.154	84.346
23	12	Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	26	1'36.386	8.228	0.012	84.336
24	63	Cooper MacNeil Toni Vilander	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	24	1'37.232	9.074	0.846	83.602
25	52	Matt McMurry Eric Lux	LMP2	ORECA LMP2	10	1'37.375	9.217	0.143	83.479
26	25	Tom Blomqvist Connor de Phillippi	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	18	1'37.515	9.357	0.140	83.359
27	44	John Potter Andy Lally	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	14	1'37.549	9.391	0.034	83.330
28	54	Jon Bennett Colin Braun	DPi	Nissan DPi	23	1'37.676	9.518	0.127	83.222
29	33	Ben Keating Jeroen Bleekemolen	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	21	1'37.934	9.776	0.258	83.003
30	48	Bryan Sellers Ryan Hardwick	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	22	1'39.908	11.750	1.974	81.363
31	76	Paul Holton Matt Plumb	GTD	McLaren 720S GT3	14	1'41.850	13.692	1.942	79.811
32	38	Kyle Masson Cameron Cassels	LMP2	ORECA LMP2	4	1'46.853	18.695	5.003	76.075
33	19	Will Hardeman Alex Riberas	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	9	1'49.776	21.618	2.923	74.049
34	8	Parker Chase Ryan Dalziel	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3		0.000
35	10	Renger van der Zande Jordan Taylor	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1	0.000
36	31	Felipe Nasr Pipo Derani	DPi	Cadillac DPi		0.000