Sebring 12 Hours: Nasr tops first practice in AXR Cadillac

Ex-Formula 1 driver Felipe Nasr led the 38-car IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship field in opening practice for the Sebring 12 Hours, while Earl Bamber put Porsche on top in GT Le Mans.

In the 75-minute session there were two red flags for spins at Turn 5 – one by the PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca and the second by the #85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac.

Eventually Nasr’s time, set on the #31 AXR Cadillac DPi-V.R’s eighth of 17 laps, held up by 0.355sec over Dane Cameron’s best in the #6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05, which was less than one tenth quicker than Renger van der Zande was third in the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac.

Nasr's fulltime partner for 2019 is Pipo Derani a two-time winner of Sebring, and that has added some impetus to the lineup which in the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds such as this includes Eric Curran, with whom Derani won the Prototype title in 2018.

Said Nasr: “Now that [Derani] is in the car with us, we need to make sure he wins this race as well, which will be my first time winning Sebring,” Nasr said.

“I really want to do it. I felt like we had an amazing car at Daytona and we started on the right foot here again. I’m really hoping we can get on that top step pretty soon.”

Romain Dumas slotted the CORE autosport Nissan into fourth ahead of Tristan Vautier’s JDC Caddy.

Gabriel Aubry’s top lap put PR1/Mathaiasen ahead of Performance Tech Motorsports in LMP2.

In GTLM, the Porsche 911 RSRs of Bamber and Patrick Pilet sandwiched the two Ford GTs of Richard Westbrook and Joey Hand, while Bamber wound up a full second quicker than the best of the Corvettes, and 1.8sec quicker than the second.

The Acura NSX of Meyer Shank Racing led GT Daytona, Mario Farnbacher 0.45sec faster than Pat Long in the Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Aaron Telitz (AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus), Rolf Ineichen (Grasser Lamborghini), Toni Vilander (Scuderia Corsa Ferrari) and Jeroen Bleekemolen (Riley Motorsports Mercedes) ensured six different manufacturers filling the top six slots.

Practice times:

Pos.	No.	Drivers	Class	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	31	Pipo Derani Eric Curran Felipe Nasr	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'46.996
2	6	Juan Pablo Montoya Simon Pagenaud Dane Cameron	DPi	Acura DPi	1'47.351	0.355
3	10	Jordan Taylor Renger van der Zande Matthieu Vaxiviere	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'47.389	0.393
4	54	Romain Dumas Jon Bennett Colin Braun	DPi	Nissan DPi	1'47.806	0.810
5	85	Juan Piedrahita Mikhail Goikhberg Tristan Vautier	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'48.027	1.031
6	7	Alexander Rossi Helio Castroneves Ricky Taylor	DPi	Acura DPi	1'48.186	1.190
7	5	Brendon Hartley Filipe Albuquerque Joao Barbosa	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'48.270	1.274
8	84	Simon Trummer Chris Miller Stephen Simpson	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'48.359	1.363
9	55	Harry Tincknell Olivier Pla Jonathan Bomarito	DPi	Mazda DPi	1'48.536	1.540
10	77	Oliver Jarvis Timo Bernhard Tristan Nunez	DPi	Mazda DPi	1'48.857	1.861
11	50	Rene Binder Will Owen Agustin Canapino	DPi	Cadillac DPi	1'50.002	3.006
12	52	Matt McMurry Anders Fjordbach Gabriel Aubry	LMP2	ORECA LMP2	1'50.877	3.881
13	38	Kyle Masson Cameron Cassels Andrew Evans	LMP2	ORECA LMP2	1'52.468	5.472
14	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor Mathieu Jaminet	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	1'56.983	9.987
15	67	Ryan Briscoe Scott Dixon Richard Westbrook	GTLM	Ford GT	1'57.313	10.317
16	66	Sébastien Bourdais Joey Hand Dirk Muller	GTLM	Ford GT	1'57.480	10.484
17	911	Nick Tandy Patrick Pilet Frédéric Makowiecki	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	1'57.594	10.598
18	4	Marcel Fassler Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	1'57.991	10.995
19	3	Jan Magnussen Antonio Garcia Mike Rockenfeller	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	1'58.818	11.822
20	25	Connor de Phillippi Tom Blomqvist Colton Herta	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'58.838	11.842
21	24	John Edwards Jesse Krohn Philipp Eng	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'59.142	12.146
22	86	Justin Marks Mario Farnbacher Trent Hindman	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	2'00.793	13.797
23	73	Patrick Long Patrick Lindsey Nicholas Boulle	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	2'01.240	14.244
24	12	Townsend Bell Frankie Montecalvo Aaron Telitz	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	2'01.448	14.452
25	11	Rolf Ineichen Mirko Bortolotti Rik Breukers	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2'01.521	14.525
26	63	Toni Vilander Cooper MacNeil Jeff Westphal	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	2'01.593	14.597
27	33	Jeroen Bleekemolen Ben Keating Felipe Fraga	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2'01.653	14.657
28	14	Jack Hawksworth Philipp Frommenwiler Richard Heistand	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	2'01.700	14.704
29	57	Katherine Legge Christina Nielsen Ana Beatriz	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	2'01.775	14.779
30	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley Dillon Machavern	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	2'01.809	14.813
31	48	Corey Lewis Bryan Sellers Ryan Hardwick	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2'01.941	14.945
32	29	Daniel Morad Christopher Mies Richard Feller	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	2'02.002	15.006
33	71	Fabian Schiller Maximilian Buhk JC Perez	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2'02.194	15.198
34	9	Scott Hargrove Lars Kern Zacharie Robichon	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	2'02.267	15.271
35	8	Ryan Dalziel Parker Chase Ezequiel Perez Companc	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	2'02.667	15.671
36	47	Brandon Gdovic Lawson Aschenbach Don Yount	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2'02.899	15.903
37	19	Andrew Davis Will Hardeman Alex Riberas	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	2'03.244	16.248
38	44	Andy Lally Spencer Pumpelly John Potter	GTD	Lamborghini Huracan GT3