For the first time since the first privateer GTP team joined the IMSA WeaherTech SportsCar Championship at Laguna Seca last May, a Porsche 963 from outside the Porsche Penske Motorsport camp has led an official session, and the two privateers were one-two in the fourth Roar Before the 24 session at Daytona.
Phil Hanson was the quickest with a 1m35.216s (134.6mph) lap in the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports 963, 0.113s better than Neel Jani in the No. 5 Pro ton Competition Porsche. Hanson’s time was 0.001s better than Pipo Derani’s time from yesterday that had been the previous best lap of the weekend.
“The JDC boys did a really good job of running out with a very strong package this morning and I think that shows in both practice sessions,” Hanson said. “ were very fast in the morning when my teammates Richard and Ben and Tijmen drove, and it also translated to the afternoon. It was interesting to see how it might change as the track temps came up a bit with still being on the sort of softer compound. But happy days.”
It was another run in the top three for Connor De Phillippi in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW. De Phillippi was followed by two Cadillacs, Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R leading Tom Blomqvist in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing entry.
Ben Keating topped LMP2 as United Autosports took first and second in the session. Keating’s 1m39.047s (129.39mph) lap was 0.047s faster in the No. 2 ORECA than teammate Paul Di Resta in the No. 22.
“It’s early, obviously, in the process of going through this event,” said Di Resta. “It’s relatively new to us. We had a test here recently where we got on top of some stuff, but we’re here just trying to learn as much as we can try and get our numbers together to process what we can between the break of the Roar and the race, and certainly come back and try and fight very strong in front of the field. But it’s certainly looking like we’re near the top. Not quite sure where everybody else falls into that, but I think we’d be naive in the sense that we’re just concentrating on ourselves trying to make the best possible car with the philosophy…and hopefully that will enable us to try to battle for the win.”