ALMS, Petit Le Mans - Thursday Night Practice
Two Hours, Not Much Action

Session Times Here >>

Darkness was beginning to descend across Road Atlanta as the day’s third and longest practice session for the weekend’s Petit Le Mans got under way at seven o’clock. The clouds that had threatened drizzle all afternoon had started to break up, and we were treated to a rosy hint of a good day in prospect for Friday.

The track was immediately busy with traffic, with two-thirds of the grid heading out into the twilight, and within quarter of an hour all 42 had completed at least one lap. Klaus Graf topped the times for Muscle Milk in the #6 HPD with a 1:13.129. Second up was Steven Kane, back in the Dyson Racing P1 Lola this week, and these two had demoted Christophe Bouchut to third - the Level 5 HPD fastest of the P2 runners and quickest overall for most of the opening laps.

Rebellion continued to impress, with Nicolas Prost setting a succession of quick times in the #12 Lola. – these top four separated by less than two seconds.

Brendon Hartley was making his track debut in the official practice sessions – his co-drivers having done all the running earlier in the day – and pushing Scott Tucker hard for some of the remaining times in P2. Both, with twenty minutes gone, were still a fraction shy of Kyle Marcelli, setting the pace in LMPC for Merchant Services Racing with a best of 1:16.783.

The good news was that the DeltaWing was out on track. Phil Barker had suggested that the team could have had the black #0 out for the afternoon session, but preferred instead to concentrate on getting everything “just so” for the evening.

Dot on 25 minutes completed and an incident between the #91 (SRT Motorsports Viper) and the #37 (Conquest Endurance Morgan-Nissan) brought out the first red flag of the two-hours. Ryan Hunter-Reay had just set the Viper’s fastest lap of the session; a 1:20.966. Both cars were returned to the paddock on the back of flatbeds, although neither appeared to have suffered extensive damage.

The session resumed after a 12 minute break, with Matthias Beche in the #46 Thiriet by TDS Oreca off onto the grass first lap out of the pits. He recovered the asphalt easily enough and continued.

A few improvements came before the evening’s second red flag, prompted this time by a self-induced spin from David Calvert-Jones in the #24 Competition Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3. The car spun across the pit straight and crumped heavily backwards into the concrete. We were 48 minutes into the period. In the meantime, Steven Kane had taken the Dyson Racing Lola #16 through to top position, posting a 1:12.849, almost three tenths to the good of Klaus Graf’s earlier Muscle Milk time. Neel Jani had eased the Rebellion Lola through to third, just eight-tenths shy of Kane.

Fastest in P2 at this stage was Luis Diaz in the #95 Level 5 HPD, but being pressed ever closer by team-mate Dario Franchitti in the #005 – by a mere two-tenths. Tom Kimber-Smith aboard the #1 Greaves Zytek held third-quickest in the class.

After the trials and tribulations of the last couple of days, progress was becoming fairly swift for the DeltaWing, but a transponder fault rendered it impossible to know exactly who was setting the pace. The team Tweeted that Gunnar Jeanette was first into the cockpit, followed by Lucas Ordoñez, but whoever, a best of 1:17.292 set the “unclassified” entry 12th overall, and somewhere near the pointy end of LMPC. That was “job done” as far as the team was concerned, and with both drivers having completed their statutory night laps, the car was put to bed for the night with just under an hour remaining.

After a day of frustration, Dempsey Racing finally had the #27 Lola running closer to a representative pace, although 1:18.676 was still slowest of the eight P2 cars, but now just four seconds off the outright class best.

Into the second hour, and Neel Jani took the Rebellion Lola through to quickest overall, posting a 1:11.643, pipping the #6, while Chris Dyson raised the stakes for the #16 Lola with an improvement to 1:12.653. In P2, it was Marino Franchitti in the #005, narrowly getting the better of his more famous brother by clocking 1:14.423 to head the P2 class for Level 5. By doing so he leap-frogged Bertrand Baguette, who moments earlier had set a new benchmark for Oak, completing a 36th lap for the Morgan Nissan with a 1:14.646.

In GT, less than half a second separated the top ten in the category. Both Vipers had moved within five-tenths of the class-leading 1:20.463 set for Corvette by Oliver Gavin in the #4, while second-quickest Guy Cosmo in the Extreme Speed F458 was just three one-hundredths shy.

After a run of 22 laps, Murphy Prototypes was another outfit to call an early halt to their night running after an issue with the front right brake led to a small fire – quickly extinguished, but enough to persuade Nick Reynolds that the team had done enough for the day. True to form, there were no other fireworks from the Irish entry, but their excellent track record in race trim is always based on diligent, if unspectacular, practice work.

By the time the clock moved towards half-eight, the timing screens had settled down to a neatly structured pattern, with the eight GTC cars bringing up the rear and the thirteen GT entries stacked smartly above them. Just the two ELMS GTE representatives upset the tidy order, with AF Corse 30th overall, and the IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 33rd. Between quickest in LMPC (the #8 Merchant Service Oreca) and the slowest (the #9 RSR Racing example) a smattering of P2 cars, and the DeltaWing, marred an otherwise orderly pattern, while the bulk of P2 was only split by the #20 Dyson Lola at the top, and the intrusion of the #8 LMPC at the base. LMP1 cars occupied the top three positions.

The session ended half an hour later with no significant changes, aside from a modest improvement for Matthias Beche in the #46 Thiriet by TDS Oreca.

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