ALMS, Petit Le Mans - Friday Morning Practice
Things are Hotting Up at Road Atlanta

Session Times Here >>

The favorable weather that we saw hints of yesterday has arrived.  Clear skies, bright sun, and crisp 58 degree F air greeted the racers to start morning practice.  The heightened sense of urgency among the teams was noticeable already this morning.  The pit lane filled with cars in anticipation several minutes prior to the start of the session. This is the last practice session before they qualify, and the last real practice aside from the brief warm-up on race morning. 

The #91 SRT Viper looks as good as new and was one of the first ones out on pit road waiting for the session to begin.  Pitted right behind the Viper is the controversial Delta-Wing.  The grumblings around the paddock centered around the safety of this oddly shaped roadster and it’s ability to ‘fit in’ with the rest of the field.  Highcroft Racing has taken heed to some of the comments and have painted the roll hoops a fluorescent safety orange to help the car become more visible to the other drivers. The orange roll hoops now actually match perfectly the orange spots on Gunnar Jeannette’s helmet.

They only completed roughly 5 minutes under green flag conditions before the course was closed to repair the tire wall outside of turn 2-3. The track crews were efficient and the green waved again within minutes.

Lucas Luhr was quickly up to speed in the Muscle Milk HPD.  Luhr was about two second faster than Prost in the Rebellion Lola. Both Dyson cars, piloted by Dyson and McMurray respectively, were a few more seconds in arrears.

The P2 class, which is shaping up to be one the most competitive prototype battles the ALMS has seen in some time, was led early by Level 5’s Diaz in the #95.  Eric Lux, who recently raced in the #20 Dyson Lola (winning class at Baltimore), was briefly 2nd quickest before being displaced by Hughes is the #118 Murphy Prototypes.

It’s anybody’s guess in GT.  The #01 ESM Ferrari of Sharp, the #56 BMW of Mueller and the #44 Porsche of Holzer all held the top spot in class during the first half of the session. 

The Corvette pair was lurking back around the 4th and 5th spot. While Dominik Farnbacher had the refurbished #91 Viper back up to speed and showing no signs of last night shunt.

The first eye-opener of the session was Gunnar Jeannette ripping off a 1:13.8 in the Delta-Wing to place him 4th quickest overall at the time and nipping at the heels of the #16 Dyson P1 Lola. That orange paint on the roll hoops must be working! 

Thirty minutes to go and Alex Brundle in the #1 Zytek overtook Diaz for the top spot in P2.  Scott Tucker was also on the move and improved his time to own the #3 position is class ahead of Heinemeier Hansson and Hughes.

Still no one can touch Luhr in his Muscle Milk P1.  Luhr continued to milk the HPD for more speed and posted the best time of the race meeting so far, a 1:10.9.  No others have been below the 1:11 mark.  The Rebellion crew has certainly shown their mustard this weekend.  Complete virgins to this circuit when they arrived here this week, now they are solidly the second quickest car here.  Belicchi was doing the best work for the team so far this session with a 1:11.2.

The ‘king of the hill’ battle continued in P2.  Pla in the #35 Morgan staked his claim to the crown with 15 minutes remaining.  His 1:13.2 put him fastest of the P2’s and 3rd overall.

In GT Bergmeister has pushed his way into the top three in class, while Vilander in the ESM Ferrari maintained the lead. Garcia would end the session with his #3 Corvette in 2nd place, but Vilander held his title of fastest in the morning practice.  Who’s not showing their hand in GT?  We’ll find out the next time they take the track.

Eye-opener number two of the session comes to us from the #20 Dyson Lola, the ‘experienced car’.  Mark Patterson has run the older Lola up to 3rd fastest overall with a  very respectable 1:12.8.  That’s over .5 seconds quicker than the team boss in the ‘new’ Lola. Chris McMurray yesterday alluded to the possibility of this car being a factor, and it appears Patterson is backing him up. If they keep this pace up the team may swap numbers on the cars in the middle of the night.

The P2 fastest time; who wants it?  Marino Franchitti says he does!  Franchitti in the #055 HPD squeezed passed Pla with a lap just .01 seconds better.  The session would end with Franchitti top dog in P2, followed by Pla and Brundle.  These top three would be less than .01 seconds apart.  Conquest racing obviously has properly repaired their damaged Morgan as Plowman was able lap 4th quickest in class just .3 seconds behind the lead group.  The Dempsey Racing Lola completed a fair amount of laps this session but were slowest in class 2+ seconds off the pace.

The third and final eye-opener of the morning practice was the Rebellion Lola. On the 2nd to last lap of the session, Jani was able to lay down the blistering lap time of 1:10.5 to easily take P1 overall. 

Qualifying in both P1 & P2 classes should be a real hoot.

PC was largely controlled by Marcelli in the #8 and Braun in the #05 until the next to final lap where Ryan Lewis in the #25 Dempsey Racing entry took the point.  That had to be a welcomed result for the Dempsey guys who have had their struggles with the P2 car. 

GTC started strong for the TRG ace Pumpelly in the #66.  Pumpelly set the best time early but then spent the rest of the session in the pits.  Leh Keen eventually took of the lead position and held it through the remainder of the session.  Second quickest was the #30 of Giermaziak.

RW