Petit Le Mans – ESM dominates the 1st day

The first three free practice sessions of the Petit Le Mans, final of theIMSA SportsCar Championship, saw the No. 5 Cadillac DPi-VR of Filipe Albuquerque-Christian Fittipladi-Tristan Vautier, the No. 07 Oreca 54 of Jon Bennett-Colin Braun-Romain Dumas and the Nissan Onroak DPi n°2 by Ryan Dalziel-Norman Nato-Scott Sharp.

But the absolute best time of this first day is to the credit of Norman Nato. The Frenchman, who is discovering the track, the team and the car, completed a lap of the Road Atlanta circuit in 1'11'457. He is 0 ahead of his teammate Pipo Derani, who shares the wheel of the sister car with Timo Bernhard and Johannes van Overbeek.

The top three for this first day is completed by the Acura ARX-05 n°3 of Helio Castroneves-Ricky Taylor-Graham Rahal (+0 »206), the Oreca 07 of Bennett-Braun-Dumas (+0 »212) and the No. 5 Cadillac of Albuquerque-Fittipaldi-Vautier (+0 »251). The first Mazda RT24-P, the No. 55 of Jonathan Bomarito-Marino Franchitti-Spencer Pigot, is sixth at 0.

As a reminder, the title should be played out between the pairs Eric Curran-Felipe Nasr (Cadillac n°31 of Action Express Racing) and Bennett-Braun (Oreca 07 n°54 of Core Autosport), the first mentioned totaling four points more than their adversaries.

In GTLM, if Ford showed its advantage during the first session, Corvette took control in the next two. The American team placed its two C7.Rs at the forefront, the advantage going to the No. 4 of the trio Oliver Gavin-Marcel Fässler-Tommy Milner in 1'17"847. But number 3 of Magnussen-Garcia – grandissimes favoris à leur propre succession – n’est qu’à 0 »1. Suivent les deux Ford GT, la meilleure BMW M8 GTE et la meilleure Porsche. À noter que toutes les GTLM sont regroupées en 0 »7.

In GTD, the No. 8 Audi R3 LMS GT29 from Land-Motorsport of Mies-Morad-S. Van der Linde set the benchmark in 1'20"283.

It's time to get serious this Friday with qualifying.