Image Credit: Kevin Dejewski
Australian Matt Campbell posted the fastest time in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 GTP machine in the second IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice session at the Indianapolis road course.
Campbell’s time of 1:14.085s was 0.185s clear of the rest of the field, with Mathieu Jaminet second in the #6 Penske Porsche 963 and Philipp Eng third in the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8, 0.465s off of the ultimate pace.
The session was the last chance for all five classes to get to grips with the IMS road course ahead of qualifying later today.
The one hour and 45-minute session kicked off with all the Amateur (LMP2, LMP3, GTD) runners getting an exclusive 15 minutes of running, with the Pro classes of GTP and GTD Pro getting an exclusive 15 minutes at the back end of the session.
Conditions for second practice were dry throughout and the session remained relatively smooth running, with only a couple of stoppages in the session.
The first came as a result of Louis Deletraz in the #8 Tower Motorsport LMP2 entry going off at Turn 1 and the second came as a result of debris caused by an incident between the #20 High Class Racing entry of Dennis Andersen and Dwight Merriman’s #18 Era Motorsport LMP2 Oreca at Turn 1 as well.
One big issue for the competitors out there was getting clear track space, with all five classes filling the IMS road course handily, which will be a challenge throughout Sunday’s two-hour and 40-minute race.
Behind the top three in GTP was the second Team RLL BMW machine, with Nick Yelloly setting the fourth-fastest time of the session in the #25 car.
Sebastien Bourdais was next up in the classification, taking fifth aboard the #1 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, with a time of 1:14.603s.
Tom Blomqvist posted the sixth fastest time in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06, with Gianmaria Bruni seventh in the #59 Proton Competition Porsche 963.
Ricky Taylor was next up on the timesheets in the championship-leading #10 Konica Minolta Acura, with a time of 1:14.874s.
The #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac sits second in the championship standings behind the #10 Acura, and Pipo Derani made sure to slot the V-Series.R right behind Taylor on the timesheets in ninth.
Rounding out the top-10 was the final GTP entry, with Tijmen van der Helm setting a time of 1:15.259s in the #5 JDC Mille MotorSports Porsche.
Mikkel Jensen led the way in LMP2, setting the best time in the class aboard the #11 TDS Racing Oreca 07 machine, with his time of 1:16.758s good enough for 11th overall.
Rounding out the top three in LMP2 were Ben Hanley in the #04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR entry and Ryan Dalziel in the #18 Era Motorsport Oreca.
Just 0.045s covered the top three cars in the LMP3 category, with bragging rights going to the #13 AWA Duqueine D08 of Matthew Bell thanks to a 1:20,840s lap time.
Second in LMP3 went to Dakota Dickerson in the #54 MLT Motorsports Ligier JS P320, just 0.003s back from Bell, with Bijoy Garg in the #29 JR III Racing Ligier third in class.
Porsche led the way in GTD Pro courtesy of Klaus Bachler in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports 911 GT3 R machine.
Bachler’s time of 1:22.905s bettered the likes of Jules Gounon in the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 – who finished second in GTD Pro – and Jack Hawksworth in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F, who completed the top-three in GTD Pro.
In the GTD class, leader Loris Spinelli beat all but one of the GTD Pro entries with his time of 1:23.025s aboard the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3.
The #32 Team Korthoff Mercedes of Mikael Grenier took the second fastest time in GTD, with the #91 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche of Kay van Berlo setting the third fastest lap-time in class.
IMSA’s Battle on the Bricks continues with qualifying later today, which gets underway at 12:55 ET (17:55 BST).
Keyword: Campbell leads Porsche 1-2 in second IMSA practice at IMS