VIR IMSA: Garcia leads second practice for Corvette

Chevrolet’s Antonio Garcia led the second IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship practice session at Virginia International Raceway on Friday, lapping over half a second clear of his rivals.

Garcia set the fastest lap of 1m41.743s just before the halfway point of the hour-long session. Tommy Milner soon made it a Chevy 1-2, on 1m42.351s – the fastest of three laps he recorded within one hundredth of a second of each other.

But Ryan Briscoe then split the Corvettes with a 1m42.262s, 0.519s off the pace but a tenth faster than Milner.

His teammate Richard Westbrook, who was fastest this morning, reported: “The car is definitely better than last year, I wasn’t comfortable in it at all then. But I’m not sure what Antonio had for breakfast!

“We knew the Corvettes would come into form in this part of the season, so it’s going to be tough.”

Dirk Muller finished fourth in the #66 Ford GT on 1m42.670s, ahead of Nick Tandy in the fastest Porsche, lapping in 1m42.712s. Tandy led the sister #912 car, driven by Laurens Vanthoor, by a tenth and a half.

Alexander Sims and John Edwards were slowest of the GTLM runners in their BMW M8s.

In GT Daytona, Jeroen Bleekemolen led the way in his Mercedes, ahead of the impressive Robby Foley in the Turner-run BMW M6.

A brief red flag was required as Road America GTD class winner Christina Nielsen was off track at the final corner in her Wright Motorsports Porsche 911, before driving back to the pits with no damage.

Patrick Long then took over and recorded the third quickest time in the car, ahead of the Lexus of Jack Hawksworth.

Session results:

Pos	Num	Drivers	Class	Car	Time	Gap
1	3	Jan Magnussen Antonio Garcia	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	1'41.743
2	67	Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook	GTLM	Ford GT	1'42.262	0.519
3	4	Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	GTLM	Corvette C7.R	1'42.351	0.608
4	66	Joey Hand Dirk Muller	GTLM	Ford GT	1'42.670	0.927
5	911	Nick Tandy Patrick Pilet	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	1'42.712	0.969
6	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	GTLM	Porsche 911 RSR	1'42.866	1.123
7	25	Connor de Phillippi Alexander Sims	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'42.934	1.191
8	24	John Edwards Jesse Krohn	GTLM	BMW M8 GTE	1'43.151	1.408
9	33	Jeroen Bleekemolen Ben Keating	GTD	Mercedes-AMG GT3	1'44.865	3.122
10	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	GTD	BMW M6 GT3	1'44.866	3.123
11	58	Patrick Long Christina Nielsen	GTD	Porsche 911 GT3 R	1'45.046	3.303
12	15	David Heinemeier Hansson Jack Hawksworth	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	1'45.182	3.439
13	44	Andy Lally John Potter	GTD	Audi R8 LMS GT3	1'45.257	3.514
14	86	Katherine Legge Mario Farnbacher	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'45.481	3.738
15	14	Kyle Marcelli Dominik Baumann	GTD	Lexus RC F GT3	1'45.504	3.761
16	93	Justin Marks Lawson Aschenbach	GTD	Acura NSX GT3	1'45.727	3.984
17	63	Cooper MacNeil Gunnar Jeannette	GTD	Ferrari 488 GT3	1'45.999	4.256