WTR tops second IMSA CTMP practice

With the track reserved for DPi and GTD PRO for the final 15 minutes of the second practice session for tomorrow’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, the teams started running qualifying simulations and the times started dropping. First Tom Blomqvist started knocking on the sub-65s lap in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing With Curb Agajanian Acura, running a 1m05.757s lap before being pipped by the other Acura, the No 10 Wayne Taylor Racing machine in the hands of Ricky Taylor, who broke that barrier with a 1m04.919s lap, an average of 136.36mph around the 2.459-mile, 10-turn circuit.

All session long it had been the two Acuras and the two Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillacs trading fast times, and the CGR Cadillacs ended up third and fourth, the top four within half a second. Sebastien Bourdais was the quickest CGR driver in the No. 01, his 1m05.225s lap 0.182s quicker than Earl Bamber in the No. 02.

Colin Braun was the quickest of the LMP3 entries with a 1m11.309s lap in the No. 54 CORE Autosport Ligier, 0.62s faster than the next quickest driver, Scott Andrews in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier. Yesterday’s fast driver, Garrett Grist, was third in the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier with a 1m12.160s lap.

Pfaff Racing moved to the top of GTD PRO in the session, Mathieu Jaminet posting a 1m15.763s in the final minutes of the session for an average speed of 116.84mph. Alex Riberas was second for Heart of Racing with a 1m15.851s lap in the No. 23 Aston Martin Vantage. Corvette Racing found some speed, improving by more than a second in the cool morning conditions and moving to third on the timesheet with a 1m15.949s lap in the No. 3 by Jordan Taylor.

Yesterday’s fast driver in GTD PRO, Daniel Juncadella, was fourth in the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG, followed by John Edwards in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M4. The Vasser Sullivan Lexus team was hampered in its efforts to get substitution driver Kamui Kobayashi up to speed when Ben Barnicoat threw the No. 14 off track in Turn 4, bringing out the session’s only red flag.

While the sister car had its issues, Frankie Montecalvo was pushing the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 to top the times in GTD. Montecalvo was the fastest GTD car overall until the final 15 minutes, when the track was reserved for DPi and GTD PRO, with a 1m15.802s lap for an average of 116.78mph. Philip Ellis in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG was second, more than a quarter-second back of Montecalvo. Robby Foley posted the third-best time in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4, a 1m16.277s, followed by Bryan Sellers in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW and Roman De Angelis in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage.

RESULTS

UP NEXT: Qualifying at 12:40 p.m., carried live on IMSA.tv