IMSA’s first practice session for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s visit to Watkins Glen gave the 38 entries plenty to deal with as wet and dry conditions posed a challenge around the 3.4-mile circuit.
The specter of rain hung over the one-hour session and finally arrived with less than 10 minutes on the clock. In the dry, JDC-Miller Motorsports fired a shot at the dominant Daytona Prototype internationals as Stephen Simpson went fastest overall in the WEC P2-spec ORECA 07-Gibson. The South African’s best lap of 1m35.491 withstood a number of runs by DPi drivers, and once the rain started falling, Ryan Dalziel’s second-best lap on the No. 2 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan Onroak DPi (+0.039s) and Joao Barbosa’s No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R (+1.322s) locked in the top three.
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“We don’t want to be the best of the rest,” Simpson told IMSA Radio. “Honestly, the JDC-Miller Motorsports guys have been doing a great job. Now our expectations are to come here and run for a podium; anything less would be a disappointment.”
The Prototype class opened the event with vehicular adversity as 30 percent of the entries dealt with major issues. The No. 90 Visit Florida Racing Riley/Multimatic Mk 30-Gibson pulled off course with some form of a leak at the back of the WEC LMP2, the No. 22 Nissan Onroak DPi was sidelined by an alternator belt problem, and the No. 70 Mazda RT24-P only managed a single lap before brake problems intervened and ended its session.
Performance Tech Motorsports’ mastery of PC continued as Pato O’Ward (1m39.741s) was a full 1.8 seconds faster in his No. 38 ORECA FLM09-Chevy than the No. 20 BAR1 Racing entry in the three-car class.
GT Le Mans belonged to the No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing GT driven by Dirk Mueller (1m43.078s) who was comfortably faster than Bill Auberlen in the no. 25 BMW Team RLL M6 (+0.490s) and Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette C7.R (+0.764s).
A similar degree of comfort was achieved by the No. 93 Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 as Andy Lally (1m45.809s) displaced Change Racing’s Jeroen Mul in the No. 16 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (+0.331s) and Jens Klingmann in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 (+0.398s) by a nearly identical margin.
UP NEXT: FP2, 3:30 p.m. ET.
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