American Le Mans Series

Sebring 12H – Wednesday Test Session Report

© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat

The first official American Le Mans Series Test Session took place on Wednesday afternoon. Twenty-eight cars went out for practice. The predicted rain for Wednesday did fall, albeit very light rain early in the morning. By the time the track went green for the LMP1, LMP2 and LMPC cars the conditions had improved and the sun was shining at the Sebring International Raceway.

With the Aston Martin Racing Lola Aston Martin not taking part in the session due to planned maintenance (e.g. replacing the gearbox) the two Peugeots were dominating their 1.5 hour long session. The #07 Peugeot was quickest by the time the checkered flag was shown for the LMP cars, with Marc Gené setting a 1:45.811. Its sister car was 0.337s behind in second place, the fastest time recorded by Pedro Lamy.

While the Autocon Lola and Level 5 Motorsports Oreca FLM09 spun and stalled briefly at Turn 10, the session was briefly interrupted by a red flag when the Autocon car, with Tony Burgess in the car, stopped on the track. After restarting the teams, LMP and GT, got back on track. An hour and a half after the session had started the LMP cars were shown the checkered flag and only the GT cars stayed out.

Marino Franchitti has posted the fastest lap in the LMP2 class, putting the Patron Highcroft Racing car in third overall, eight tenths of a second ahead of the Drayson Racing Lola Judd. Muscle Milk Team Cytosport and Dyson Racing Team were second and third in class.

By the time the LMP cars had gone in the two Chevrolet Corvettes had already set their fastest laptimes in GT2. The #3 of Jan Magnussen was quickest, posting a 2:01.837, teammate Oliver Gavin was 0.183s slower in the #4 Corvette. Risi Competizione’s Pierre Kaffer was third fastest, 0.431s behind the Corvette of Jan Magnussen. Best of the Porsches today was the Team Falken Tire, Wolf Henzler posting a 2:02.369.

In the GT Challenge it was the #23 Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup of Bill Sweedler, Romeo Kapudija and Jan-Dirk Lueders that was quickest. But the car also caused the red flag some minutes before the official end of the session. Race control decided to end the session and brought out the checkered flag shortly after the red flag had been shown. Velox Motorsports and TRG were second and third in class.

The two Extreme Speed Motorsports Ferrari’s and the two BMW Rahal Letterman Racing Team BMW E92 M3s did not take part in the session either.

Full times can be found here at the IMSA website.