SEBRING, Fla.—The Rolex 24-winning #5 Action Express Coyote-Corvette Daytona Prototype was the quickest car in the Prototype class by almost eight-tenths of a second in the afternoon session of Day One of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship Winter Test at Sebring.
The #5 Action Express car topped the morning’s quickest, the #42 Oak Racing Morgan-Nissan P2, by 0.78 seconds, turning a best lap of 1:52.480 to the Oak’s 1:53.267. The Action Express car also completed more laps than any other prototype, finishing 45 laps in the two-and-a-half hour session.
The Oak Morgan-Nissan’s best effort in the morning session was 1:53.204; Action Express Coyote-Corvette didn’t run in the morning session.
The rest of the top five were Daytona Prototypes: The #90 Spirit of Daytona Coyote-Corvette, the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Dallara-Corvette, and the #01 Ganassi Riley-Ford EcoBoost, 2.2 seconds off the pace of the Action Express car.
The two Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03bs and the Muscle Milk/Picket Racing Oreca-Nissan finished sixth through eighth
The quicker ESM car, the #1, and the Muscle Milk car didn’t spend a lot of time on track; nine laps for the #1 ESM and 14 for the Muscle Milk. The Starworks #78 Riley, running the brand new twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 Honda, only did 19 laps and finished 13th overall and 11th in class.
The #25 8Star Oreca-Chevrolet was again quickest in the PV class with a lap of 1:56.561, more than two seconds quicker than its nearest competitor.
Porsche North America again topped the GTLM class, though it was the other teams other car, the #911, which was fastest in the afternoon session. The #912, which was fastest in the morning, was third in the afternoon, behind the #93 SRT Racing Viper GTS-R.
The #911 lapped the course in 2:00.364, 0.132 quicker than the Viper and 0.172 ahead of its sister car. The #912 turned a quicker lap of 2:00.048 in the morning session; it and the #56 BMW Team RLL Z4 were the only cars in the class to hit the two-minute mark. Seven GTLMs hit 2:00 in the afternoon.
The entire eight-car GTLM field was covered by a single second; there simply aren’t any slow cars in this class.
Another Porsche was fastest in GTD: the #73 Park Place Motorsports 911 GT America turned in a lap of 2:04.703, 0.212 quicker than the #33 Riley SRT Viper GT3-R. The Park Place Porsche improved from seventh in the morning session while the Viper improved from third.
The TUSC Winter Test runs for one more day, with Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge cars starting the action at 8 a.m. and the TUSC cars hitting the track at nine. Each series runs twice, with the Test wrapping up at 5 P.M.
Admission is $10. Visit IMSA.com for more information.
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