American Le Mans Series

Peugeot flying in official night practice at Sebring

© American Le Mans Series

Only a few hours after the qualifying session the cars went back out on the track in the first night practice session of the Sebring weekend. Just like during the qualifying session the red flag came out during the session, this time after the Autocon Creation spun and stalled on the track early in the session, but the track went green a few minutes later. At the front Audi and Peugeot battled again for the quickest time.

The #26 Andretti Green Racing Acura was at the top of the time sheets for quite a while after Marco Andretti set a 1:47.902 on his second lap, but when the French and German LMP1 squads went for it they quickly beat the young Americans lap time. Just over one hour into the session it was Pedro Lamy who had set the fastest lap time of the night practice, a 1:45.788. The Peugeot was followed by the two Audi R10s, with the #1 setting a 1:47.191 and the #2 recording a 1:47.673.

As the session came to an end the standings at the top remained unchanged with the Peugeot setting a fastest lap of 1:45.583. The #1 Audi was 0.859s behind the French LMP1 with the #2 sister car 0.276 behind the #1.

Quickest in LMP2 remained the #26 Andretti Green Racing Acura, although they did not improve their first fastest lap time and they spent an awful lot of time in the pitlane. The #7 Team Penske Porsche RS Spyder was best of the rest at the one hour mark, 0.271s behind the Acura, but still over four tenths of a second ahead of the #9 Patrón Highcroft Racing Acura.

Despite being in the pit for a long period the time set by the #26 Acura was not beaten by any of the other LMP2s. The #7 Penske Spyder managed to get a bit closer, but stranded at 0.156s of the Acura. Third fastest in the LMP2 category was the #20 Dyson Racing Porsche with a fastest time of 1:48.298

In GT2 the gaps between Ferrari and Porsche was over half a second after one hour. As expected the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari was quickest with a 2:02.729, 0.111s ahead of the #71 Tafel Racing Ferrari. Fastest Porsche at that point was the #45 Flying Lizards 997, but it was 0.698s behind the Risi Ferrari.

1 hour 40 minutes into the session it was Jörg Bergmeister in the #45 Lizards Porsche that jumped to the top of the GT2 timing sheets, improving the best GT2 time of the session to 2:02.449. None of the other teams was able to beat the time set by the Porsche nor the previous fast times set by the Risi and Tafel Racing Ferrari.

In GT1 the Corvettes were once again 1-2. The #3 Corvette was quickest in a 1:57.954, the #4 recorded a 1:58.522. With a 2:00.694 the Bell Motorsport Aston was third fastest.