American Le Mans Series

Sebring 12H – Thursday Practice 2 Report

© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat // The Jaguar XKRS before going off

At 2:05 pm the second free practice session for the 58th Annual Mobile 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Fresh From Florida got underway under perfect weather conditions.

But even before any of the teams had set a proper fast lap time the red flag was shown when the Team Falken Tire Porsche 997 GT3 RSR of Bryan Sellers came to a halt at Turn 13. When the track was cleared again the green flag was shown and the action resumed.

Shortly after the session had been restarted Nic Minassian took the #08 Peugeot 908 HDi FAP out for some fast laps and improved the fastest time set by Fernandez before the red flag. On his fifth lap Minassian posted a 1:46.552. Jonny Cocker checked in in second place, almost three seconds behind.

Thirty minutes into the session the #08 was still in the lead, although Cocker had closed the gap to just under half a second. The #007 was third fastest, Fernandez posting a 1:49.824. Sascha Maassen was quickst in LMP2, 1:50.763 for the Porsche driver.
Gunnar Jeanette was quickest in LMPC, Guy Cosmo in GT2 and the #32 Porsche was quickest in GTC.

A second red flag was shown at 2:42 pm when the RSR Jaguar #75 spun coming out of the last corner, causing some damage to the back of the car. A small fire was seen under the hood of the Jaguar XKRS, reportedly coming from burning differential oil.

Twelve minutes later the session was restarted and the cars got out again for a final time. Alexander Wurz had taken the wheel of the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP #7 and just when the clock showed it was 3 pm the Austrian improved the time set by Minassian and brought the fastest time to 1:46.539.

Five minutes later the checkered flag came out ending the final day time practice session. The cars will be back on track this evening at 7.15 pm for the night practice.