Petit Le Mans: Taylor leads opening practice for Acura
Ricky Taylor sent Acura Team Penske to the top of the times in opening practice for Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Taylor, who along with co-driver Helio Castroneves has won the last three Prototype rounds in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, used the #7 Acura ARX-05 to lap the fabulous 2.54-mile road course in 70.086sec.
However, the majority of the session saw the car in the hands of third driver for the 10-hour race, Alexander Rossi, who hasn’t driven the Acura since January’s Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona and who has no previous experience of Road Atlanta.
Taylor’s best effort was just 0.068sec faster than Oliver Jarvis’ in the #77 Mazda RT24-P and 0.15sec ahead of the second Mazda of Jonathan Bomarito.
Swiftest of the Cadillac DPi-V.R drivers was Felipe Nasr in the Action Express Racing entry, just under quarter-second from top spot, with Sebastien Bourdais’ JDC-Miller machine fifth, a tenth quicker than Gabriel Aubry in the sister car.
Tower Motorsport by Starworks led LMP2 thanks to Mikkel Jensen, almost half a second faster than Scott Huffaker in the PR1 Mathiasen Motorsport car.
Laurens Vanthoor and Nick Tandy formed a Porsche 911 RSR 1-2 in GT Le Mans but getting seat time for the third drivers for the squad – Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell naturally became priority.
Connor De Phillippi was third for BMW, 0.1 ahead of Antonio Garcia’s Corvette C8.R.
In GT Daytona, Bryan Sellers’ Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan led from Andy Lally’s similar Magnus Racing machine, with Darren Turner an impressive third in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage.
Second practice begins at 3.45pm local (Eastern) time.
Session results:
| Cla | Num | Driver | Class | Chassis | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 |  Helio Castroneves  Ricky Taylor Alexander Rossi | DPi | Acura DPi | 1'10.086 | |
| 2 | 77 |  Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez  Olivier Pla | DPi | Mazda DPi | 1'10.154 | 0.068 |
| 3 | 55 | Jonathan Bomarito Harry Tincknell Ryan Hunter-Reay | DPi | Mazda DPi | 1'10.243 | 0.157 |
| 4 | 31 | Felipe Nasr Pipo Derani  Filipe Albuquerque | DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'10.326 | 0.240 |
| 5 | 5 | Sébastien Bourdais Tristan Vautier Loic Duval | DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'10.398 | 0.312 |
| 6 | 85 | Chris Miller Matheus Leist Gabriel Aubry | DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'10.505 | 0.419 |
| 7 | 6 |  Juan Pablo Montoya Dane Cameron Simon Pagenaud | DPi | Acura DPi | 1'10.529 | 0.443 |
| 8 | 10 |  Renger van der Zande  Ryan Briscoe  Scott Dixon | DPi | Cadillac DPi | 1'10.872 | 0.786 |
| 9 | 8 |  John Farano  Mikkel Jensen Job Van Uitert | LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'11.078 | 0.992 |
| 10 | 52 | Patrick Kelly  Simon Trummer Scott Huffaker | LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'11.553 | 1.467 |
| 11 | 38 | James McGuire Matthew Bell Colin Braun | LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'11.569 | 1.483 |
| 12 | 51 | Austin McCusker  Jakub Smiechowski Rob Hodes | LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 1'14.364 | 4.278 |
| 13 | 912 | Earl Bamber  Laurens Vanthoor Mathieu Jaminet | GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | 1'17.008 | 6.922 |
| 14 | 911 | Nick Tandy Frédéric Makowiecki Matt Campbell | GTLM | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | 1'17.494 | 7.408 |
| 15 | 25 | Bruno Spengler Connor de Phillippi Colton Herta | GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 1'17.607 | 7.521 |
| 16 | 3 |  Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor Nick Catsburg | GTLM | Corvette C8.R | 1'17.755 | 7.669 |
| 17 | 24 |  Jesse Krohn John Edwards Augusto Farfus | GTLM | BMW M8 GTE | 1'17.871 | 7.785 |
| 18 | 4 | Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner Marcel Fassler | GTLM | Corvette C8.R | 1'18.698 | 8.612 |
| 19 | 48 | Bryan Sellers Madison Snow Corey Lewis | GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 1'19.946 | 9.860 |
| 20 | 44 | Andy Lally John Potter Spencer Pumpelly | GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 | 1'20.119 | 10.033 |
| 21 | 23 | Ian James Roman De Angelis Darren Turner | GTD | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 | 1'20.415 | 10.329 |
| 22 | 14 | Jack Hawksworth Aaron Telitz Michael de Quesada | GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 1'20.461 | 10.375 |
| 23 | 16 | Ryan Hardwick Patrick Long Jan Heylen | GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 1'20.484 | 10.398 |
| 24 | 96 | Bill Auberlen Robby Foley Dillon Machavern | GTD | BMW M6 GT3 | 1'20.501 | 10.415 |
| 25 | 86 |  Mario Farnbacher Matt McMurry  Shinya Michimi | GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 1'20.601 | 10.515 |
| 26 | 12 | Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell Kyle Kirkwood | GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 1'20.636 | 10.550 |
| 27 | 57 | Alvaro Parente Mikhail Goikhberg Trent Hindman | GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 1'20.759 | 10.673 |
| 28 | 74 | Gar Robinson Lawson Aschenbach Ben Keating | GTD | Mercedes-AMG GT3 | 1'20.811 | 10.725 |
| 29 | 63 | Cooper MacNeil  Alessandro Balzan Jeff Westphal | GTD | Ferrari 488 GT3 | 1'20.871 | 10.785 |
| 30 | 9 |  Dennis Olsen Zacharie Robichon Lars Kern | GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R | 1'21.090 | 11.004 |
| 31 | 30 | Rob Ferriol Markus Winkelhock Andrew Davis | GTD | Audi R8 LMS GT3 | 1'21.108 | 11.022 |
| View full results | ||||||
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About this article
| Series | IMSA |
| Event | Road Atlanta II |
| Drivers | Ricky Taylor |
| Teams | Team Penske |
| Author | David Malsher-Lopez |
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